


Gravity Hurts

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bromance for the ages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jeremy

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through the end of S3.

Elena paces in the morgue and Caroline stands by with a bloodbag. Her eyes meet Jeremy's and all he can process is that he's already been through this, this fucking week. First Ric, now Elena. Is he supposed to be noble and say, _No, go ahead, die. Leave me here with all the vampires and no adults._

Maybe he could even say it, for Elena, but is he supposed to _mean_ it? 

No, nobody would expect that.

She doesn't even say anything, she finally just reaches her hand out and takes the bag from Caroline. That's when Jeremy turns on Stefan. He punches him hard, feels multiple bones in his hand break, and doesn't give a flying fuck about the pain radiating up his arm. Stefan goes down (later, Jeremy will realize the vampire let that happen to make it easier for him to pound him), but it doesn't prevent Damon from grabbing Jeremy by his shoulders and throwing him across the room. His back hits the door hard, and he's ready to let a stream of swear words fill the air between him and Damon, but Damon reaches down and grabs his brother by the front of his shirt.

Then he starts hitting him, too, and Jeremy feels every landed punch, like it comes from his own fist. Damon's much more capable of hurting Stefan, and Jeremy revels in it, in the blood that splatters down his chin onto his shirt from his nose and lip.

Elena has barely taken her first mouthful of human blood before she's screaming Damon's name, and that eventually gets him to stop. He drops Stefan back to the ground like a sack of potatoes; Stefan rolls away with a soft groan. Then Damon's eyes swing around to Jeremy. Something passes between them, like they're on the same team or whatever, so Jeremy opens the door with the hand he's not cradling against his chest. He nods for Damon to precede him through it and they walk out of the morgue, and then the hospital, together. At the curb, Damon bites his wrist and offers Jeremy his blood, gesturing vaguely at his broken hand. "I won't let you get killed between now and this time tomorrow," he mutters, and Jeremy can't help the way his eyebrows fly upward.

"I promise," Damon says, shoving his wrist against Jeremy's lips.

He rides shotgun in Damon's Mustang, silent as the bones in his hand start knitting themselves back together.

 

 

They don't really talk about it at first. Damon sleeps on the couch in the living room, and Elena doesn't come home. Jeremy gets up and goes to school, because faking it until he makes it seems to be his only viable coping mechanism; he lies about Elena being sick with some mysterious illness that might keep her out of school for a while to everyone who doesn't know the truth, and when he comes home, Damon's sitting on the couch, drinking bourbon straight from the bottle.

He sits next to him and Damon just hands him the bottle, like this is normal.

"What's going on?" Jeremy asks, but he doesn't take a drink.

"I don't know," Damon says, tilting his head towards Jeremy. "And I don't want to know. It's just better all around if I don't see Stefan. So, if you want to know what their plan is, you better call them."

"What are _you_ going to do?" Jeremy asks, because he can't imagine Damon taking up Ric's old job as guardian.

Damon closes his eyes and rests his head on the couch cushions. "I have no fuckin' idea," he mutters.

Jeremy puts the bottle on the coffee table and goes upstairs to call his sister.

 

 

He wakes up around noon on Saturday and comes downstairs because there is girlish laughter and weird music coming from the living room. Damon is lounging on the couch with three girls, all of whom don't look much older than Jeremy. When one of them leans close to the vampire, offering up the artery in her neck like it's nothing, he just stands at the foot of the stairs and watches.

It's gross, and horrifying, and Jeremy suddenly feels like Elena got turned into a vampire and he got turned into Elena because he rushes forward and demands, "What the hell is going on here?"

Damon lifts his head from the girl's neck and gives him a bloody smile. "Just a little dinner, Jer. No worries. I won't get blood on the sofa."

Jeremy looks around at the girls, the two that aren't directly on Damon's lap and he says, "You girls need to go home. Get out of here!" He raises his voice just a little.

Damon's arm shoots out, grabbing Jeremy's wrist over the back of the couch. He holds him tightly, though not painfully, but Jeremy knows if he tries to pull back, it's going to turn ugly. "They are compelled to stay for as long as I want them here, and I want them here a while longer," he says pleasantly. His eyes are hard, though, and Jeremy feels fear skitter up his back.

Damon did kill him, once, after all. It would be good to always remember that.

"They'll leave in a bit," Damon says firmly though his words are slightly slurred, either from alcohol, his fangs, or combination of both. He lets go of Jeremy's arm. "If you want," he points to one of the girls that is dark and Asian, similar in looks to Anna. "That one would probably show you a good time."

Disgusted, Jeremy turns away, scoffing. He stops dead when he sees Alaric leaning against the wall that leads into the kitchen. "He's pretty well gone for now, Jeremy. You'd better catch him when he's sober and set up some house rules."

"Right, like giving him rules is going to make this better," Jeremy spits.

Alaric gestures for him to follow him into the kitchen. "Tomorrow, when he's sober, I'll help you deal with him. He'll probably listen."

"Probably?" Jeremy asks. He doubts it very much, and he gives Ric a look he hopes shows that.

Ric shrugs. "He's difficult, but he needs you, otherwise he wouldn't be here. I'm sure, if he knows I'm there, he'll be somewhat receptive."

"Elena's a vampire," Jeremy says, sitting down at the table with the ghost of his dead guardian. Damon hollers, "Woo-Hoo!" from the living room, and Jeremy cranes his neck to see his housemate dancing around the living room with his three guests. If he can tell Jeremy is talking to anyone, he's not showing it. "What if he kills one of them?" he asks.

"He won't," Alaric says. "And I know about Elena. I was actually just at the Boarding House. It's not going well over there."

Jeremy turns his eyes back to Ric. "I talked to her the other day, but she was just telling me what she thinks I want to hear. She kept promising that when she learns to get this under control, everything will be better, but I don't know." Jeremy shakes his head. "I sorta think we've got this all wrong. Damon should be the one over there with her and Stefan should be here with me. Well," he snorts. "I mean, I don't want Stefan anywhere near any of us, especially Elena. He let her die, Ric."

"He did what she wanted him to," Ric says softly.

"Right, but I'm still pissed at him. Who let's their girlfriend die, even if she said so? That's messed up."

Ric nods. "Yeah, Jer. It's all messed up." He gives Jeremy an intent look. "We've got to try and hold Damon together. Because you're right, Elena's going to need him, but by the time she gets around to figuring that out? He could be off the deep end and irretrievable."

Jeremy can feel his eyes going wide as he realizes just what Alaric is suggesting. "There is no way in hell I'll ever be able to 'hold Damon together.'" He leans forward, as if suddenly Damon might start paying attention to the crazy guy talking to himself in the kitchen. "Ric, it's _Damon_."

Ric purses his lips in that fatherly way of his. "I know, Jeremy. And you're pretty much his only hope."

 

 

The next day, Jeremy comes downstairs to find Damon channel surfing. He's got a cocktail glass in his hand, but there aren't any underage girls nearby. He leans his arms on the back of the sofa and says, "Did I tell you that Ric visits me sometimes?"

Damon jerks around to look at him, and one side of his mouth quirks up. "Huh. No, you didn't, but that's nice for you, I suppose." He's sober and quiet, and Jeremy wonders what he's thinking about. It's like the stuff from the day before hadn't even happened.

"It's nice to see him sometimes," he says conversationally. What he wants is to lay it all out, demand that Damon help Elena and not be his normal jackassy self, but he and Ric have a plan. "He suggested you teach me how to drive."

Damon looks a little dumbfounded by this pronouncement and his eyes narrow as he watches Jeremy. "He what?"

"Nobody's bothered to teach me to drive, what with all the mayhem and stuff. I thought it would be cool to learn in a classic Mustang."

This is a total lie; he learned to drive over a year ago because Jenna had forced him to so she could call it "quality time" with him. He got his license right after he turned sixteen, and that was nearly nine months ago. But he's banking on the fact that Damon doesn't know that and has never seen him drive a car. It was the only thing he and Ric could think of that Damon might be willing to do that wasn't a completely inappropriate activity. Someday, Jeremy totally plans on getting Damon to show him how to pick up chicks, but that can wait until after his sister is a fully functioning vampire.

Damon takes a swallow from his glass and stares hard at Jeremy. "I'm sure it would be cool to learn in a classic Mustang; unfortunately, my car is a _Camaro_."

Jeremy straightens up, and then walks over to open the front door to look at Damon's car, which is parked right out front. "That's a Chevy?"

"You don't know anything about cars, do you, Gilbert?"

"I know that Camaros are Chevys."

Damon gives a half-hearted laugh, and then gets up from the sofa. He claps Jeremy on the back. "Fine. It'll be my last gift to Mystic Falls. I'll teach you to drive."

Jeremy glances at him as Damon grabs his jacket from the coat rack and fishes his keys from the bowl on the table. "Your last gift?"

Damon nods as he shrugs into his jacket. "I've decided I'm going to leave town. It's time to put this all in my rearview, or you know, fucking kill my brother, which isn't going to help since he's training a baby vampire."

As they walk out to the car, Jeremy wonders if Ric is around listening. Holding Damon together won't be a problem at all. Especially if he's not even in Mystic Falls.


	2. Damon

Damon's relieved when Jeremy seems to be a natural at driving a stick-shift. He only grinds the gears once, but he does keep slamming on the brake like he's trying to put his foot through the floor of the car.

"Ease up, Mario," Damon chides. "Just tap it a little, press your foot lightly. There's no reason to launch me through the windshield."

"Sorry," Jeremy says, glancing over sheepishly.

Damon restrains himself from reaching over to ruffle the kid's hair. He's not sure why he even feels that inclination, but he doesn't like it, not one bit.

It's not that he doesn't _like_ Jeremy. Of course, he does. The kid had had the balls back in the day to come and try to kill him, like a man. He's had begrudging respect for the younger Gilbert ever since, and he might harass him every chance he gets about being an underage, friendless dick, but that's only because he likes getting a rise out of Elena's brother.

(It's almost as fun as getting a rise out of his own brother.)

Thoughts of Stefan are permeated by an anger that Damon's not sure he can control, so that makes this little expedition that much more banal. Is he seriously giving some kid driving lessons? (Some kid who just happens to be Elena's brother?)

It's better to keep busy, he supposes, until he makes his stage left exit.

"Take Route 4, like you're going to the Boarding House, only _don't_ go to the Boarding House," Damon instructs as they get to the edge of town. "County roads are better. Less traffic."

Jeremy flips the blinker on and then takes the corner a bit fast, so Damon's thrown up against the passenger window. "Maybe ease into the turns a bit, huh?" he says. "We're not on a high speed chase, you know." Jeremy laughs a little and apologizes again. Damon finds himself trying to give positive reinforcement like some kind of fucking life coach. "Your general knowledge is great, you just need practice."

"You think that's what Stefan's telling Elena?"

Damon straightens himself in his seat and then looks over at his protégé. "What?"

"That's what Ric wants to know. If you think Stefan's vampire lessons to Elena are as practical as your driving lessons."

Damon whips his head around to look at the empty back seat. "Ric's here?"

"Yep," Jeremy says, his tone vaguely smug. Damon glances at him in irritation. He's the only one who gets to be smug for no apparent reason.

"And he wants to quiz me about Stefan's teaching methods?" Damon asks skeptically.

Jeremy waits a beat to answer. "He's just curious."

The really sucky thing about having had a best friend? You miss them when they're gone. And the reality is, on a lot of levels, he'd lost Ric long before he became an unstoppable vampire hunter. On the other hand, even though he can't actually hear Ric, he can still _hear_ him. Jeremy's the source, but Ric's slightly dry condescension is still coating the words.

"Right, because Stefan was always of great interest to you, _Ric_." He continues to peer into the backseat, even though he knows he won't be able to see anything.

Again there's a small pause before Jeremy says, "His interest is Elena, you dick."

Damon looks at Jeremy who has taken his eyes off the road to smirk in his direction. "Was that him, or you?" he asks.

"Both."

Shaking his head, Damon points a finger in the general area of the backseat. "Caroline is there, too, it's not just Stefan."

"How do you know that?" Jeremy asks.

"Because, I talk to Blondie every day. I might not be able to fathom being in the same room with Stefan without staking him, but I do care about what happens to Elena. Caroline's there, and she's helping."

Jeremy looks in the rearview mirror and nods his head. "Ric says that Caroline has bigger worries than helping Elena. Apparently Klaus took over Tyler's body."

It takes just two seconds for those words to penetrate, and then Damon can't stop the words that fly out of his mouth. "Mother fucker! That's just great. Fucking Klaus. We can never get rid of him!"

While Damon's lamenting the un-get-riddable-ness that is Klaus, Jeremy says, "No. No way. She did not do that!" There is a long pause, and then he says, "Bonnie. would. not. do. that."

"What? What did Bonnie do?" Damon demands, looking back and forth between Jeremy and the space where Ric supposedly sits. 

Jeremy finds a wide space on the side of the road and pulls the car over. Turning around to hang over the seat, he says vehemently, "She would let all the vampires die before she would help Klaus. There's no way, Ric. _No way_."

Damon grabs Jeremy's shoulder, squeezing it until Jeremy winces under his hand. " _What did she do?_ "

"She's the one who put Klaus in Tyler's body, according to Ric." Another pause. "That's what Caroline just told Stefan and Elena."

Damon closes his eyes, and suddenly he's back there, at the storage unit with Bonnie. "No, she did it alright. And I totally gave her the opportunity." It's possible he just found someone to be more angry with than Stefan. 

(It's possibly a tie between Bonnie and himself.)

"Ric says she did it to save you all, because Klaus fathered your bloodline." Jeremy looks at Damon, shaking his head slightly. "Does that sound like Bonnie, to you?"

Damon snorts at Jeremy's skepticism. "She wouldn't save _me_ , per se, but she wouldn't let everyone else die, including her mother. Hmmm. Maybe I owe her a thank you after all." He presses his fingers against his eyes, contemplating for just one second yanking them out entirely. If he's blind, he doesn't have to see Stefan, right? Or Elena in all her vamped-out glory, being completely neutered by his brother, who he really doesn't want to see, has he mentioned that? Because honestly, for all the times he wanted to rip Stefan's heart out, the closest he ever came was in the basement of Mystic Falls General Hospital. It was only Elena screaming his name that had cut through the rage long enough for him to snap back to reality.

"Fuck," he mutters, dragging his hands down his face. "We better go to the Boarding House," he finally utters and then he looks around in amazement as Jeremy high fives the air in the backseat.

The kid looks gleeful as he turns around and starts the car. "This wasn't exactly the plan," he says, "but whatever gets you involved with my sister's transition is what I'll take, even if that means Bonnie's gone crazy."

He pulls the car around so that they're headed back towards the Boarding House as Damon gawks. "What?"

"You're the one, Damon. You're the one who should teach her."

"Right, because you _thinking_ that will just make it _happen_."

"You seeing her is one step closer," Jeremy says confidently.

Damon remains silent for the half mile it takes them to get to the turn off to the Boarding House. As Jeremy eases the car into the driveway smoothly, minus the jerkiness of his earlier corner-taking, he glances back at the non-visible Ric. "He already knew how to drive, didn't he?"

 

 

As they go in the front door of his house, Damon calls out, "Stefan?" He focuses, listening hard, and he can hear them, in the library. He motions to Jeremy to follow him and they find a teary-eyed Caroline, a broody-as-usual Stefan, and a practically-crawling-out-of-her-skin Elena sitting amongst all Damon's books, obviously having a pow-wow.

Stefan gets to his feet as Damon and Jeremy come in, but Damon only has eyes for Elena. It's been five days since he's seen her, but it feels like five lifetimes. She stiffens as their gazes meet, and then she draws her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and containing herself on the over-stuffed leather chair.

"What's up?" Stefan asks, like the last time they all saw each other, Damon and Jeremy didn't take turns using him for a punching bag.

Damon rolls with it, because what's the point? Making Stefan deal with reality is just too much work. "We just heard about Bonnie, and the Klaus-Tyler hybrid."

"What?" Caroline squeaks. "How did you hear about it?" She wipes at the tears on her cheeks, and Damon almost feels sorry for her.

"Ric told me," Jeremy says, and all three of them exchange looks with each other before Elena asks in a hoarse voice, "What, Jer?"

"I see dead people, remember?" Jeremy asks.

The sarcasm in his tone is slightly over the top. Damon reaches back and puts his hand on Jeremy's chest. "Easy, buddy," he says, because he understands. But he doesn't need Jeremy and Elena at odds with each other, because that's going to be his position, he's certain.

"Are you all cooking up some sort of plan to deal with it, or what?" Damon asks, looking at Caroline and Stefan specifically.

"Bonnie has to do a spell to restore Klaus's real body before he'll vacate Tyler," Caroline says with a delicate sniff. "But...Bonnie's being difficult."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Damon huffs. "I don't even want to know about this." He turns around to leave, but Jeremy blocks him and gives him several head nods and eye-widening chin lifts. He knows what he's saying, _We're here for Elena, remember?_ but Damon doesn't want to deal with that either.

It's not like he's ever trained a baby vampire, and his track record with Stefan is less than stellar, as one might know, and beyond that, well, it's just _complicated_. Elena's the girl, _the_ girl, and she doesn't want to be; she picks his brother over him even in the face of death, and he can't love her any less if he tried (believe him, he's fucking _tried_ ), and, and, and! It goes on for days, and he's just not cut out for this shit.

That's when he remembers: he already decided this. He's leaving town. That's what he and Stefan agreed on (prior to Elena's existence being eternal, but whatever) and that's what he's going to do. So he turns around and looks at his brother, the girl he loves more than is humanly—or vampirely—calculable, and the girl he once used as his own personal blood bag, and says, "If you want my help with anything, you have a very limited window of opportunity. I'm leaving town shortly, as per our arrangement, brother, so y'all better hurry up and decide if you want my help. Limited time offer, no rainchecks available."

Elena speaks first, her voice little more than a croak. "Where're you going?"

He looks over Stefan's shoulder at her and can't bite back his snarky reply. "Really, that's what you want to know?"

"Damon," Stefan says, a note of caution in his tone.

He draws his eyes away from Elena and looks hard into his brother's face. "Do you want my help or not?"

"Yes!" Caroline cries, standing up. "Yes, Damon, if you can help, I want you to. Please," she says with a soft wail. "Please help Tyler."

He spares her a glance; she presses her hand against her mouth as she breaks down sobbing and Elena finally gets up from her chair and walks over to put her arm around her friend. Damon watches this exchange, something that's familiar about Elena, and thinks, _That's fitting._ He'll help Caroline in some sort of karmic retribution, and then he'll leave Mystic Falls forever.

He'll go out the way he came in, balls to the wall.

 

 

A few glasses of whiskey later, they have a plan formulated, and Elena sits warily in the corner, looking at Jeremy like it pains her to have him so close. Which, Damon's sure it does pain her, in her gums, in her very veins. All she can think about is his sweet warm blood gushing over her tongue, and it doesn't matter that she loves him more than anyone else on the planet. After about a hour of her hungrily but woefully staring at her brother, he tosses his keys to the kid.

"Go home, Jer. I'll be back in a while."

Jeremy's eyes connect with his and he does his head-nodding thing again and Damon just gives one sharp return nod in confirmation. He will try with Elena. He knows it won't make a difference, but he'll try, so he can tell Jeremy later that he did. The burden is going to be on Stefan, but maybe he can give Caroline some pointers, things she can pass on to Elena that will help.

What he's not expecting is Elena following him to the kitchen when he goes in there to rinse his glass. They've devised a plan that entails Damon going to talk with Bonnie (which, isn't that hilarious? But really, it's the best way in this situation), and Stefan and Caroline intend to do their own witch-search just in case that fails. Elena doesn't have a job in the plan beyond moral support, only because nobody trusts her quite yet in leaving the house. (And when he says nobody, Damon means _Stefan_ and _Elena_.)

"You're really going to leave?" she asks, her husky voice driving shivers up his back in a new and different way. (It's the _you're only gonna hear it for a few more days_ way.) She clears her throat, but Damon doesn't turn around to face her. He stands at the sink and rinses his glass a second, then a third time, and finally she says, "Damon," in a plaintive tone. 

If he doesn't turn around, he's a real bastard, in other words. And she is the girl he loves.

"Stefan and I agreed," he says, slowly pivoting around. "Didn't he tell you?" For all the times Stefan's kept things to himself, it wouldn't surprise Damon at all if this was the first she was hearing of it.

She nods, "Yes, he told me. I just thought..." she trails off and her eyes move around the room, landing on everything but him. "I guess, I just figured...you wouldn't, you would, well, you'd—"

"I wouldn't keep my word?" he supplies for her as she flounders.

She stands up straighter, and actually looks offended. "No. No. I guess I just figured other promises you made had more meaning to you."

At first, he has no idea what she means, but the longer they stare at each other the further he's falling into her eyes, which even if Elena's a vampire now, and she's slightly different, there are some things that nothing can change about her. And the hypnotic quality of those doe eyes are at the top of the list.

If she says, _Please, don't go_ , he's toast.

Then he realizes what she's referencing. That moment, also in the library, also over bourbon, after a night of near-death experiences— _I promise you. I will never leave you, again._

He shrugs. "What did I know?"

She smooths her hands down her jean-covered thighs, like maybe she's got sweaty palms. "I remember, you know," she says, moving towards the island center to get up on one of the bar stools to stare him down over the wooden table top.

Here's the truth, the reason he'd rather never have to help with this whole vampire thing, especially since she chose his brother. "Oh, yes," he says flippantly. "It changes everything, doesn't it, knowing we met first? I mean, who would leave true love up to, you know, something as unreliable as feelings? It's really just about first come, first served."

"Don't be mean," she says. It's so world-weary, as though she were a thousand-year-old vampire like Rebekah, not just an almost-week-old one.

"Don't be mean?" he repeats. "That's rich. To be honest, I figured you'd tear me a new one when you remembered. Stefan can let you fucking drown, but it's called respecting—" he uses air quotes "—your choices, but me, I'm the monster who would take your choices away."

Elena's eyes take on a sheen suddenly and she shakes her head at him. "I could be dead and not remember anything, or I can be a vampire and see you for what you are, but either way you wouldn't be happy."

He snorts. "Right, Elena. Because this is about _my_ happiness. That's what it's always been about."

Stefan makes his entrance then, and Damon would bet stacks of cash that he was waiting in the hall for the right moment. "Are you staying here, again?" he asks Damon, as though he has no idea that he interrupted a quasi-argument. 

Damon sets his clean glass down on the sideboard, upside down to dry. "No," he spits. "I can still barely tolerate the sight of you, brother. I'll be at Jeremy's. Tell Blondie I'll let her know as soon as I talk to Bonnie."

He heads towards what had once been the servants' entrance, the doorway that leads outside through a utility room behind the kitchen. "Damon, be careful," Stefan calls. "Bonnie's dangerous now."

He turns around, noticing how Stefan stands stiffly beside Elena's seated figure, and as he walks out backward through the door, he says, "Don't worry, I've got Jeremy. He's my secret weapon."


	3. Alaric

The good thing about being a ghost is the speed with which one travels. Vampires think they move fast, but now Alaric knows. Not as fast as ghosts. It took a bit of time to get the hang of it, to realize that just the thought wasn't enough, it had to be a deep desire to be in the place. Generally it had to be connected to a person that would possibly be in the place, so he bounces back and forth between the Gilbert house and the Salvatore Boarding House easily.

Elena, Jeremy, and his feelings for them are powerful enough to make it happen with the barest thought.

But the truth is, Damon is what moves him even faster. 

It's fitting; he spent the last six months of his earthly life torn between just hating Damon and hating himself for caring about the douche. But in the end, it had been Damon, by his side, willing to do whatever he wanted, willing to sit quietly with a drink until the moment had passed. Of course, the moment didn't pass then, it came later, but it was still with Damon. He had died in Damon's arms, and the second he was released from his mortal body, he'd been back with Jeremy, and then he'd been on the bridge, watching Stefan dragging Elena's body from beneath the water while Matt sat, coughing up a lung on the river bank.

Then he'd been at the hospital, watching while Damon finally almost killed his brother.

It had been a really bad time to be dead.

Jeremy stepped up though, reaching out to Damon in the best way possible: completely understated. Ric knows Damon well enough to know that he has it in his head that he's kinda sorta taking care of Jeremy, and that's fine. _Whatever gets you through the night, you homicidal vampire._ Feeling like they'd be okay for a moment, Ric had stayed behind to see what Elena would do. He thought she might go home with Caroline, who offered, of course, but in the end she went with Stefan.

At the Boarding House, Stefan gave her a second bloodbag "to take the edge off." (It hadn't seemed to help with Elena's fidgetiness, though she sucked it down in record time.) Then she told him everything that had happened, including a phone call she'd shared with Damon. As painful as it was to know Damon loved Elena rather pointlessly, it was somehow embarrassing for Ric, even as a eavesdropper, to listen to the recounting of that; he'd been there, on the other end of the line, waiting to take Damon out. 

Talk about worst day ever. God, now he actually felt sorry for Damon. (Truthfully, he'd always pitied him some, that was the only way he could tolerate him.)

As Elena finished her narrative, she paused, her fingers pressing against her temples, and then she started crying. These weren't the stalwart tears of the girl who had endured too many things to lose her shit over this, and yet, he watched her crumple onto the floor, resting atop one of Damon's prized Persian rugs, grief ripping her apart.

Watching Stefan awkwardly trying to comfort her was just as difficult to sit through, so he left after that, and decided once he had a little distance that she must have been crying for herself. For the loss of her human life, for the fact that now she was immortal when that was the last thing she wanted.

But then he sat in the Gilbert kitchen and concocted a plan with Jeremy to save Damon, and he remembered. The elder Salvatore makes people feel things they don't want to feel. Things they don't want to _admit_ they feel.

Until they're dead.

 

 

Jeremy waits for him, upstairs in his bedroom. When Ric leaves the Boarding House, Damon and Elena are talking in the kitchen, so he beats Damon back to the Gilberts the night they plan Bonnie's downfall. Ric wonders if Jeremy understands that Damon will kill her if he has to; he'd warn Jeremy, but then they'd both be dead, and that's the only truth Ric knows.

Whatever he does, from this side of things, it better preserve Jeremy Gilbert's human life, or what the hell is the point of any of this?

Damon's going to be the better man (drunken Elena-lamentations finally coming true), if it fucking kills him, and Ric will harass him through Jeremy forever if he has to, to make it happen.

If Ric's really lucky, maybe he'll be able to save Bonnie's life too.

 

 

He accompanies them to Bonnie's house, in the backseat of Damon's car. Jeremy knows he's there, but he doesn't say anything. It's a little tense as Damon reiterates, "Just remember to act scared. You better sell it, Gilbert. You're one of those people she'll do anything to protect, so she has to believe I'd kill you."

Jeremy makes a noise, half laugh, half _are you serious?_ "You did kill me, remember?"

Damon's eyes are trained on the road, and he doesn't look over at his passenger when he says, "Yeah, but I wouldn't do that now."

Ric watches Jeremy's face, sees the softness there as he regards the guy he truly believes can help his sister. Part of him wants to warn Jeremy. _It's not easy caring about Damon Salvatore, so be careful, buddy._

"I know you wouldn't," Jeremy says, and Ric thinks maybe he already knows. Then Jeremy asks, "Why are you doing this anyway? I mean, if you're just gonna leave, why not take off already?"

Damon's quiet for a moment, and then he says, "I might not be able to help Elena, Jeremy. She probably won't _let_ me, and as much as I'd like to, there's no forcing her into it. But I can help Caroline, and then she'll owe me. She'll have to stick with Elena, even if Elena gets hard to stick with." Ric waits as the two of them exchange looks, and then Damon continues. "Just when she thinks she's got the hang of this vampire thing, it could go bad. You've seen out of control vampires, you know what it's like. The thing is, Elena will be like Stefan—eternally tormented. She'll need someone around to remind her that it doesn't have to be that way. Caroline can do that."

Jeremy turns his face toward the window, looking out at the passing neighborhood. "Maybe," he says, sounding skeptical.

"Just follow my lead," Damon says as they park in front of Bonnie's house. Ric blinks, and finds himself inside the house first. Bonnie is studying a Grimoire, alone, in her living room and she startles when the knock comes at the door.

Cautiously, she gets up and answers it, and then looks relieved to see Damon, which causes him to smirk. Ric can see the wheels turning in his head just before he utters, "Glad I'm not Klausler, huh?"

She shakes her head at him and then waves him and Jeremy inside. Jeremy's eyes settle on Ric and they exchange a surprised look. "Ask them when Damon got invited in here," Ric says, curiosity getting the better of him. Damon always had his secrets, but Ric's suddenly questioning his own worry for Bonnie's life at the vampire's hands.

Jeremy smiles and looks back and forth between Damon and Bonnie. "Ric wants to know when you first invited Damon in, and so do I for that matter."

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "It was a weak moment, before he killed my mother."

"Turned your mother. I _turned_ her."

"By first killing her," Bonnie snipes.

"Ah. Tomato, tomahto."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she takes a deep, long-suffering breath before saying, "I assume you're here about Klaus's body?" she asks, before doing a double take at Jeremy. "Wait, did you say, _Ric wants to know..._? Can you see Alaric?"

"He sees him all the time," Damon interjects. "Biggest hanger on, _ever_."

"Tell him he needs to find my Grams for me," she says, turning to the desk on the far side of room. She grabs a framed photo and looks back at Jeremy. "Where is he?" she asks. Jeremy points and Bonnie spins towards Alaric who examines the photo of Sheila Bennett. "Go find her, Ric. I need her."

"Bonnie," Damon says, his voice losing all snarkiness. "You did a spell to put him in Tyler's body; you must be able to do the spell to restore his real body. It was burned, but not completely. It can't be that much more difficult."

She turns on Damon so quickly he takes a step back. "I don't want to put him back, Damon. I want to permanently immobilize him. That's what you should want me to do! That's what everyone should want me to do, but all Caroline cares about is getting her boyfriend back!"

Damon's brows draw into a sharp point over his nose. "Did you miss the part where Elena became a vampire? We have enough to deal with right now. Let Klaus be Klaus again. He won't be after Elena because she's already dead, and he'll leave us alone once he's got what he wants. Then Tyler will be fine, and Caroline can focus on what matters, which is _Elena_."

Bonnie pivots away rigidly, setting the photo of her grandmother down on top of the Grimoire she'd been reading when they first arrived. "Of course, all you care about is Elena. Guess what, Damon? I care about Elena, too. I already made her a daylight ring, and Stefan can see to her. In fact, why don't _you_ help him if you're so worried about her? I'm not putting Klaus back without a fight. I won't do it."

Jeremy steps forward. "Bonnie—" 

Damon grabs him around the neck, pressing his arm hard against Jeremy's windpipe so he's gasping for air. "Put Klaus back, or else, Bonnie."

"Or you'll kill Jeremy?" she asks, not looking too concerned. "Right, because you're going to want Elena to hate you forever. Besides, he's got his ring on, even though he should take it off and _throw it away!_ "

"Bonnie—" Jeremy gasps, and Ric laughs because it's comical. Why do all their plans suck so much? Nothing ever goes the way they intend.

"He's not going to kill you, Jeremy." She marches right over and plucks the ring from Jeremy's hand, which is tugging ineffectually on Damon's arm. She stares into Damon's eyes, giving him a run for his money in the smirking department. "Are you, Damon?"

The moment stretches, the tension escalating to a point that Ric knows; there is danger, only because Damon doesn't know what else to do. He's lost, without a plan, and nothing frightens him more than that. He finally lets Jeremy go, shoving him across the room with unneeded velocity. Jeremy crashes into a chair, but rights himself relatively quickly.

"I can't help her," Damon all but shouts. "She chose _Stefan_ , and I have to leave town, and there isn't going to be anyone around to clean up all your messes." Ric feels his throat close off, or the equivalent of that, since his body doesn't feel exactly the same now. It's an odd moment, though, when the emotion coursing through the room is Damon's and yet it's shared by everyone present.

"I don't need you to clean up anything," Bonnie says. She turns back towards Ric. "I need you," she points vaguely towards him, "to find my Grams. And I need you two to convince Stefan, Elena, and Caroline that I'm doing the best I can for everyone, but I'm not doing anything until I've at least tried this." She lifts her chin. "I'm not anyone's performing monkey, do you understand? This is _my_ magic. And no one is going to make me do a spell I don't want to do."

 

 

Ric wanders around in the netherworld, asking about Sheila Bennett. It's funny because he doesn't see the people like him as easily as he does the ones in the corporeal world. But when he tries, he does encounter people, though no one he knows. In the beginning, he hoped he might run into Jenna, but Esther had told him that she had never been in this place, so he knows he won't. 

He does finally find a guy who has heard of Sheila— _She's a witch, right? They usually keep to themselves and don't make it easy to find them_ —but he tells him he'll ask someone he knows and get back to him.

Feeling like he's done all he can for the moment, he starts to envision Damon and Jeremy back at the Gilbert house, but suddenly feels like he should go check on Elena at the Boarding House. As he pops in there, he finds a level of tension that beats anything that went on between Bonnie and Damon and Jeremy.

"Maybe I'm not like you, Stefan," Elena says, her voice choked with tears. "Maybe I won't be able to repress myself like that. And maybe I shouldn't. You said yourself that that's been one of the biggest mistakes you made—"

"You can't feed on humans, Elena. _You. Can't._ " Stefan paces agitatedly in front of the fire place and Elena stands across the room with her arms wrapped around herself protectively.

"I don't see what the big deal is, if they're willing."

Stefan looks both incredulous and sucker-punched as he stares at her. "You don't see what the big deal is? _You don't see what the big deal is?_ " he repeats, and somehow his voice is quieter, not louder, but his next words crack like thunder. "Who are you? Damon?"

Elena's body jerks like she's been shot and she spins around and walks out of the room. As she hits the doorway, she taps into her vampire speed and disappears up the stairs into the second story of the house. 

Alaric watches while Stefan makes a beeline for his brother's bottles of booze. His hand trembles as he pours himself a drink, and he throws back two fingers of bourbon without a pause. He stares into the bottom of the glass, shaking his head morosely, and then he grabs the bottle and settles on the sofa, alone.

This is how it's been, most of the times that Ric's encountered Stefan and Elena alone. They argue far more than they work together cohesively, and their arguments aren't the kind that really accomplish anything. He doesn't invade their privacy enough to know if they have apologetic make-up sessions following these moments, but it worries him more than anything.

He hasn't told Jeremy, or Damon via Jeremy just what his concerns are, and that's mostly because he wishes he could talk to Damon privately. Jeremy has already had too much "grown-up" stuff to endure, Ric really doesn't want to involve him too deeply into something that he can't really do anything to help with anyway.

As he sits with an unknowing but steadily drinking Stefan, he understands that he can't be vague anymore, not if Elena's going to survive this.

When the front door slams, Ric looks around as Stefan zips out of the room faster than he can process it. 

That's when he realizes: Elena just left the house for the first time since she became a vampire.


	4. Jeremy

As Bonnie stands toe to toe with Damon, Jeremy understands what a punk he is. He feels the depth of his punkdom, like all the way to his toes, and he's disgusted with himself in a whole new way. After Ric agrees to go look for Grams, and he and Damon leave Bonnie's house, he sits glumly in the front seat and mentally berates himself.

The car ride is only fifteen minutes long, but about halfway through, he can't stand it anymore and so he says, "I'm a total idiot."

Damon's head jerks in his direction and he smirks a "You'll get no argument from me," his way before he asks, "What, praytell, brought this on?"

"Bonnie. She's totally awesome, and I blew it."

Damon chuckles. "Oh, young love." Jeremy punches his arm and calls him a dick. "Hey, now," Damon says with a bigger laugh. "You are an idiot, I agree, but not in the way you think. Or, rather not _only_ in the way you think. Bonnie totally still cares about you; I bet with the right wooing, you could get her back."

Jeremy can't stop the "Really?" that flies out of his mouth, but then he instantly feels worse for caring about something like that when his sister just died, and came back, as a vampire. (His life is so fucked up, now, there's just no way around it.)

"Really," Damon says, completely serious.

"How?" Jeremy asks after a milli-second of thinking he should put all personal things aside until he knows Elena is okay. He can do both, can't he? Damon's got multiple projects, so Jeremy can just do what he does.

"I would start with a big-ass apology," Damon says, as they pull up in front of the house. Jeremy gives a him an _oh, really?_ look and Damon concedes, "If I were _you_ , I'd start with a big-ass apology. Be creative. Buy chocolates and flowers or whatever Bonnie likes. But for now, get outta here. I'm gonna go have a chat with Blondie. I'll be back later, and we can plot your next move."

Jeremy smiles, but Damon waits a beat before he returns it. A grin actually tugs at his mouth as they stare at each other, and Jeremy realizes how little of that has been going on for any of them. "Cool," he says, climbing from the car. "I'll see you later."

"T.T.F.N.," Damon says, waving his hand, his smirk firmly in place.

As he walks up the steps, and the Camaro pulls away from the curb, Jeremy realizes he left his keys inside the house when they took off earlier. He doesn't know if Damon actually has a key (the one they hid under the fake rock out front is missing) or would just be able to do some vampire trick to make it easier to get in, so before he texts him, he decides to walk around back and see if the kitchen door might be unlocked.

Elena is sitting on the back step, all alone.

"Elena?" Jeremy asks, and she looks up at him in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Jer," she says, her voice tattered. He sits down next to her and she flinches away from him just slightly.

"You worried you're gonna eat me?" he asks, giving her a small smile.

She wraps her arms around herself and grimaces. "Maybe," she says, clenching her teeth. "Where's Damon?"

"He had to run an errand. I locked myself out, and the spare key was missing..." he pauses and she looks a bit sheepish.

Holding up the key so he can see it, she says, "I forgot I'd have to be invited in. So I tried the front door, you know, like a normal person and couldn't get in. So I came around here and cried for an hour, and now you're home."

Jeremy's not so dense he doesn't know that this is the hardest thing in the world for his sister. The choice she made, he's sure had a lot to do with him; he wants it to be easier for her, and that's why he's certain that Damon is the one who should be helping through this. Now is his chance to plead his case. "Would you like to come in, Elena?" he asks.

She nods, and more tears appear in her eyes. He wraps his arm around her and hugs her anyway. Maybe it's dangerous, maybe it's not, but all that matters is his sister needs him. "It's gonna be okay," he says, squeezing her tight.

* * *

In the kitchen, Elena finds Ric's stash of bourbon and pours herself a drink. "It helps," she says, gesturing when Jeremy gives her a raised brow. "It helps with the cravings."

"Hmmm," Jeremy says, taking a seat at the kitchen table. He points across from him so she'll join him. "That's interesting. I don't think that's why Damon drinks so much, though," he muses.

A ghost of a smile traipses across Elena's mouth. "No, that's not why Damon drinks."

Jeremy watches his sister intently. "Why do you think he drinks?"

"To forget," she answers, her tone wistful, her eyes diving into the bottom of the glass just before she throws back the final swallow. "That's why he has to keep drinking, because he has to keep forgetting."

Jeremy feels like he's playing chess, like he has to plan each move very carefully to get the best possible positioning before he moves in for the kill. (That's probably the world's worst analogy when sitting across the table from a two-week old vampire.) He takes a breath. "Why are you here?" he asks. "You ready to come home?"

Elena's eyes dart to his and then skitter away and she moves her shoulders in a combination shrug-shudder. "No, probably not. But I needed to get out, get away from the Boarding House. Stefan...and I don't—" She hesitates and Jeremy's eyes are drawn away as he notices Ric standing in the hall. Ric puts a finger to his lips to indicate his presence need not be known.

Elena sighs loudly, and she grabs the whiskey bottle she brought with her to the table. Pouring herself another shot, she finally says, "We just don't see eye to eye on things."

"Like what?" Jeremy asks.

Another deep breath. "Like what's okay and what's not okay."

Just as Jeremy's about to ask what that means, the front door bursts open and Caroline comes tearing into the house. "Elena!" she shouts, and both Jeremy and Elena jump in surprise. Damon is right behind Caroline, and while his expression shows some concern, he doesn't have Caroline's panicked quality.

Elena sets her glass aside, her own face suddenly creased with worry. "What?" she asks. "What is it?"

"What is it?" Caroline demands. "It's you, that's what it is! You can't be alone with Jeremy! Who knows what you'll do to him after what you did to Matt!" Caroline grabs Elena's arm and pulls her to her feet. Jeremy looks at Damon, who is watching this exchange with a mild smirk on his face, openly curious as opposed to appalled.

"What happened to Matt?" Jeremy asks.

Elena's eyes sling-shot between the two boys and then she jerks her arm from Caroline's grasp. "Jeremy was never in any danger from me, were you, Jer?" Jeremy obligingly shakes his head and Caroline looks over at him, her eyes narrowing in on his neck. "And when I drank from Matt, it was because he _offered_. I really wish Stefan hadn't told you."

"You can't feed on people," Caroline says shrilly, and that's when Damon finally interrupts, coming to stand near the two girls. 

"Actually, yes, she can," he says. "She's a vampire, and she can do whatever the hell she wants, and you and my brother are not going to be the vampire police. Leave her alone."

"Damon," Caroline shouts, spinning around to face him. "She didn't do a 'snatch, feed, erase.' She was drinking from _our_ friend. From someone she knows. That's not the same, and you know it. So stop acting like you're all Pro-Elena's-Choices now."

"Shut the fuck up, Caroline," Damon barks. "I never said they weren't poster-kids for the co-dependent, but that's between Matt and Elena. And I'd like to point out, she was sitting here calmly talking to her brother, not looking like a rabid vamp about to tear out his jugular, so why don't you just chill out?"

Caroline rolls her eyes and turns back to focus on Elena. "It's not okay to feed from Matt, I don't care if he signed a contract of agreement! You can't do that. _We_ don't do that."

Elena's eyes narrow, and Jeremy sees a side of her that rarely pops out. "Are you mad because I fed on Matt, or because he _let_ me?" His sister knows the answer to that one, and it's almost like watching her prod Caroline's last nerve with a Taser.

Jeremy's been around vampires for a while now. He's seen some pretty scary shit; he's been killed by one, fed on by others, and now as he sits at his own kitchen table, he watches a girl he's known most of his life vamp out and attack his sister, her own best friend. It's like a car wreck, and he can't tear his eyes away, so as Caroline punches Elena and then promptly goes into girl-mode by grabbing some of her hair, he looks over at Damon, because of the two of them, only one is actually capable of stopping it.

Damon, being Damon, lets it go on for a couple of minutes. After some screaming, yelling, scratching, hissing, and all around vampire faces come out, he grabs each of them by their throats and steps between them. "As completely arousing as this is," he says in a loud voice to combat their squeals and grunts, "I'm gonna have to break it up." He gives Caroline a hard toss up the hall, shouting, "Off to your corner, Blondie!" When Elena lunges for Caroline, he says, "Not so fast, Petrova Doppelganger," and grabs her around the shoulders, preventing her from getting to her target. 

Elena's eyes jerk to his and she shoves him away. "What's that supposed to mean?" she demands. The fact that Caroline accused her of bad behavior and she didn't act guilty at all contrasts greatly with the look on her face as she surveys Damon. 

He steps back and gives her a once over, but also uses his peripheral vision to make sure Caroline's not coming back around. He leans in and whispers, "It's very Katherine of you to find an ex-boyfriend to feed on, E-len-a."

The horror splashes across her face instantly, and Jeremy is convinced anew. Damon is the only one who will be able to show her the way to be. His first instinct about this had had to do with the fact that he thought Damon loved Elena in a better way than Stefan (he'd never let her die, that's for damn sure), but it's this moment that shows him something he hadn't quite grasped before. It's not just that Damon loves her; it's that he _knows_ her so well. The inherent understanding between them is just that obvious. Jeremy can see it, like something palpable that stretches between them.

"Elena," he says, standing up from the table. "I need to talk to you, in private."

He marches around the table and grabs his sister by the arm. Damon gives him a little nod, as does Ric as they pass by him in the corridor. Caroline's standing at the front door as they get to the foot of the stairs, crying quietly. "I'm sorry, Elena," she says, sniffing loudly.

"No, _I'm_ sorry, Care," Elena says, rushing into her arms. They hug each other tightly and then Jeremy tugs on Elena's arm, pulling her away.

Damon swears in exasperation behind them, but Jeremy doesn't look back. He just drags his sister upstairs, intent on making her listen to, and accept, the truth.

From the top of the stairs, they hear Caroline mutter, "You're disgusting, you know. _As completely arousing as this is..._ Ugh, so gross."

Damon just laughs, and Jeremy pretends not to notice Elena's lips twitching in response.


	5. Damon

As Damon rounds the final turn to Caroline's house, he sees Stefan's car parked out front. He can't imagine that either his brother or Elena decided today was a day for an outing, so something must be wrong.

A moment of panicked worry is superceded by just a smidge of glee as he shuts the Camaro's engine off and focuses his hearing on the two vampires inside Liz's quaint little house. Because there are only two, the third one is somewhere else so these two can gossip about her. _She wouldn't do that!_ Caroline's voice rings with disbelief, and a long-suffering sigh billows out of Stefan. _I saw it with my own eyes, Caroline. It was...really weird. Catching them, was like, I don't know. Almost as bad as when Elena tried to tell me about making out with Damon. Just...bad. Just, not my Elena._

Damon's interest is instantly peaked by whatever bad behavior Elena has engaged in, if for nothing else than the perverse pleasure of annoying Stefan (that never got old, even when he thought he didn't have the dumbest brother in Virginia, but of course Stefan had ruined that by letting Elena drown). He wonders who Stefan caught Elena doing what with exactly. He can guess it was a dinner prospect, not a sexcapade, since, well, he remembers. In the beginning, all you want is blood, and you don't think you'll ever want anything else ever again.

And besides, Elena was only sexually illicit with the older Salvatore. Damon snorts at himself. He could rail about how Stefan's Elena is the exact same Elena who made out with him—against a pillar, her tongue wicked and delicious, her hands works of art across his shoulders and over his cheeks—because that's how it always works. Girls love Stefan, but for a good time, they call Damon. It's only Stefan who doesn't know that part of them, or he very conveniently looks away when they're visible.

Damon likes to think Elena only shows it to him, but he doesn't know for sure.

He skips up onto Caroline's porch and knocks superficially before letting himself in. They're standing in the living room, separated by the coffee table, all serious looks, Stefan with his arms folded over his chest and Caroline all but wringing her hands.

"Who'd Elena kill?" he asks glibly, knowing that they'd be a lot more freaked out if that were actually the case. Maybe a reality check will bring them down from their high horses.

Caroline's mouth opens automatically, but then she snaps it shut and looks to Stefan. Damon waits, just staring at his brother. It's not like he can't just go find Elena and find out what the hell happened, but he wants them to tell him. He wants their agony, not Elena's guilt. He wants _Stefan's_ agony. He doesn't really care about Blondie. That's when he remembers why he came there, so he says, "Bonnie's working on a spell to permanently disable Klaus, and she's immovable, so I suggest you back off and give her all the time she needs so she doesn't kill all of us just to shut you up."

Caroline huffs, momentarily forgetting Elena's sin, but Stefan finally answers the original question. "I found Elena feeding...on Matt Donovan."

Damon's surprised at that, but he covers it quickly with a smirk. "The Quarterback? Well, I suppose he's tasty, all healthy, athletic blood. But she didn't kill him? Just fed?" 

Stefan nods stiffly, but he's still obviously not okay with it. So Damon presses it further. "Like she lost control, fed on him, and you pulled her off so she didn't kill him, or she was feeding on him because they were fucking?"

Caroline gasps loudly and exclaims, "They weren't fucking! Oh, my God, Damon. Could you be any more gross? I'm sure she just compelled him to let her do it."

Damon snorts. "Right, because Elena would be all up on compulsion less than two weeks after turning. And like she'd have to compel the busboy. I'm sure he'd do anything for her, especially after getting her killed."

"That wasn't Matt's fault!" Caroline shouts.

Damon narrows his eyes at her and then swings his gaze around to Stefan. "Oh, don't worry, I know whose fault it is."

Stefan flinches a little under the remark, but presses on. "She was just feeding on him. It wasn't the first time, either, I just happened to catch them this time. Elena and I fought, and she left the Boarding House. I came here to get Caroline to go look for her. I thought maybe she went home."

Damon pulls out his phone. "I'll call Jeremy, he's at the house."

"He's at the house alone?!" Caroline shrieks, and then she's out the door so fast it makes Damon's hair flutter.

Facing his brother, he hears Caroline's car door slam and the engine start up. "Should I follow her to make sure everything's okay?" He says it with just the right tone, as though he just wants to take care of everything, but really it's because he knows his brother's thought process right now. He doesn't want to be the one to correct Elena, even though it's the worst thing he can think of her doing, minus actually killing someone. Which is bound to happen sooner or later, anyway. Typical Stefan martyr stuff. Annoying as hell, by the way.

"She might hurt Jeremy," Stefan says.

Damon snorts again. "She won't hurt her brother," he says, never more certain of anything.

"Damon, _I_ killed our father, remember?"

This time Damon laughs outright. "Yeah, I remember. But he was already bleeding, _and_ he was a douche who deserved to die. If Elena fed on Matt without hurting him, she won't kill Jeremy. Even if she feeds on him."

He turns around to follow Caroline out the door and back to the Gilbert house. "Damon?" Stefan calls.

"What?" he demands, looking over his shoulder.

"Just...help her, okay?"

Damon nods, because there aren't words that can be uttered now.

 

 

Caroline stands glaring at him as Jeremy and Elena go up the stairs to Jeremy's bedroom. "You're disgusting, you know. _As completely arousing as this is..._ Ugh, so gross."

Damon laughs, and bites his tongue so as not to remind her of when she liked arousing him. There's no reason to make her feel worse, Elena did a pretty good job of that herself. He really loves it when the Petrova fire comes out because it does turn him on. Everything about Elena does something for him, but that part, the part that she guards so carefully? That's his favorite.

"Let's go outside, Blondie, give the kids a chance to talk," he says, grabbing Caroline's arm and dragging her out on the front porch.

She jerks out of his grasp and says petulantly, "Quit calling me 'Blondie,' I don't like it."

She walks across the porch and sits down on the top step. Her shoulders droop and all the nasty things he could spew at her seem to melt off his tongue. He's obviously spending too much time with Jeremy because he's going soft. He says nothing, but sits beside her, and the silence stretches.

Finally Caroline says, "Jeremy's telling Elena that you should help her with her vampire transition."

"Quit eavesdropping," he says, giving her a look.

"Did you compel Jeremy to say that?" she demands, though her voice has lost all of the shrill shoutiness of earlier.

" _No_ ," Damon responds pointedly. "Believe it or not, Jeremy came up with that one all on his own after my baby bro let his sister drown. I didn't have to say a word."

Caroline leans forward, wrapping her arms around her knees tightly. She stares out into the setting sun and sighs forlornly. "I hate to even say this, but I think he's right." She glances over at him, and Damon can't help the shock that must be all over his face. "You know my loyalty lies with Stefan, for a lot of reasons, but..." She shakes her head. "He doesn't know what to do with Elena the vampire. He wanted Elena the human, and now he's up shit creek without a paddle." She pauses, obviously thinking, before she adds, "When he helped me, he wasn't emotionally involved. He was my friend, sure, but we got close because he helped me. I don't think he really liked me when I human anyway. He related to me better once I was a vampire. I don't see that happening with him and Elena."

Damon watches her as she turns her eyes back to the house across the street. She says softly, "You don't want her drinking from Matt anymore than Stefan does, do you? That's a private thing, Damon. If you do that with someone..." She glances over at him again. "You either make them forget you did it, or they're willing for a whole different set of reasons. She can't use Matt like that."

"No," Damon says in agreement. "And I bet she won't, now that everyone knows about it. It was her dirty little secret. You know Elena, she always has to have one, but once it comes out, it's the end of the line."

Caroline studies him and then one of her eyebrows quirk. "That's not what happened with you. You weren't her dirty little secret; you were the secret she was keeping from herself."

The sudden turn of the conversation displaces Damon. He's sitting perfectly still, but he feels like he's reeling and trying to plaster a smirk in place doesn't seem to work. His mouth can't make any shapes other than a small O of surprise. Finally he finds himself uttering, "What?"

"I hate you, you know," Caroline says. "I want to always hate you for what you did to me, but if I hate you, I might make Elena miss the boat. Damn it!" She jumps to her feet and skitters down the steps so she's standing on the sidewalk. Spinning around she pins him with a stare. "You have to teach her what she needs to know, not how to be a Damon-esque vampire, do you understand me? And if she falls in love with you, you have to treat her like gold. And you have to not rub it in Stefan's face."

Damon stands up too for no reason other than what she's saying doesn't compute. He didn't come out here to get Caroline's blessing, and he certainly doesn't need it or want it.

Right?

(Jeremy is totally ruining him. Why do the Gilberts have so much influence over him?)

Caroline moves so she's standing right in front of him and she grabs his hand. "Give me your word, Damon."

 _Like that means anything_ , he wants to scoff. Instead, the words, "I promise," fall out of his mouth.

There is something seriously wrong with him, obviously.

The door opens and Elena comes out on the porch. "There you guys are," she says, looking at them and their joined hands oddly. "What's going on?"

Caroline flashes a giant smile and then rushes over to hug Elena. "I have to go," she says. "I need to go apologize to Bonnie. I haven't been being a very good friend to either of you. So, I need to fix that. You," she says, pulling back to look into Elena's face, "you stay here with Damon and Jeremy. Maybe a break from Stefan is a good idea, yeah?" she says gently.

Elena swallows and nods her head almost imperceptibly. "Thanks, Care," she whispers, and they hug again.

Damon rolls his eyes, because if this is going to be the requirement for him to help Elena, it's not going to go well. He doesn't do comfort hugs. Shirtless hugs? Yeah, but they all know Elena's not gonna go for that. Caroline gives him a fierce stare as she passes him to go to her car, as if trying to re-communicate everything that has just been said, and then he's just standing there, alone with Elena.

Neither of them moves or says a word for at least a whole minute.

Then, at the same moment, they both turn awkwardly toward each other, and Damon finds he'd like to hug her. Like, he would really like to close the distance between them and take her in his arms, and make it all better.

His problem is he doesn't do platitudes and he's never tried to pretend things are anything other than what they are, but in that split second, he realizes giving her comfort is neither of those things. It's, like, the desire of his heart. Just to make her feel better, if only for a short while.

So, he takes two steps, and when there's only a foot of space left, he opens his arms. He doesn't even have to say anything because she launches herself against his chest and completes the thought herself. As her head finds a spot to rest in the cove of his shoulder and neck, her arms surround him, under his jacket. She holds on tightly, and Damon thinks maybe this is the best moment of his life.

He wraps his arms around her and presses his mouth to her ear. He doesn't say, _It's gonna be okay_ or _Don't worry._ Instead he says, "I'm here," and he means it. He couldn't leave if he wanted to, and he doesn't really want to. He never did.

Elena sniffs, and he wonders if she's crying. He doesn't look to see, but when she says, "I know," he finds that the world is spinning just as it should, tears or no tears.


	6. Alaric

By the time Jeremy and Elena reach Jeremy's bedroom door, Ric is already waiting inside for them. Jeremy's eyes meet his briefly as he leads his sister to the end of his bed. She sits down, and covers her face with her hands. At first Ric thinks she's crying because her shoulders are trembling, but then she lifts her face and laughter bubbles out of her mouth. "This is crazy, isn't it?" she asks, just shaking her head. "Me and Caroline, catfighting in the kitchen, _Damon_ being the voice of reason. You, dragging me up here the way Dad used to. What has happened to me, Jer?"

Jeremy folds his arms over his chest and looks down at her. "You became a vampire," he answers honestly, but Ric can tell with both the pose and the tone of his voice he's trying to remind Elena of Grayson Gilbert, because her smile grows wider at she stares at her brother. "Young lady," Jeremy gracelessly tacks on, his voice deepening ever so slightly. "It's not okay to snack on your friends, or scratch another's eyes out, even if she's fucking annoying." That's when Jeremy starts laughing and he throws his arms up. "Okay, I can't keep it up. Dad could do the disapproval thing even when he didn't feel it. I remember him giving me a lecture about not getting into fights with that douche Jeff Hamilton and then I heard him telling mom how proud he was of of for standing up for myself.

"So, on that note, 'Lena? I'm proud of you. You've been a vampire for a while now, and you haven't killed anyone. You're doing good. But..."

He sits down next to her on the bed, and she scoots over to let him, her smile fading as things grew serious. "Ric and I both think that Damon might be a better...mentor than Stefan."

Elena's brow creases and she repeats the word "Mentor?" like she's never heard it before. "Damon? What?"

Ric finally says, "Just tell her I've seen some of her and Stefan's interaction."

Jeremy nods and repeats Ric's statement.

Elena glances around, looking slightly caught. "Where is he?" she asks. Jeremy points towards the dresser where Ric stands. "Ric?" she asks uncertainly. "I miss you," she says, and the sudden lump in his throat feels like a boulder. 

Even though Ric says nothing, Jeremy offers, "He misses you, too."

"I know it's not going well with Stefan," she says, and she reaches for Jeremy's hand, as if drawing strength there. "But do you honestly think it will go any better with Damon?"

"Yes!" Jeremy says emphatically. "Look, Elena," he rushes on before Ric can say anything else. "Damon is difficult, we all know that. I mean, he killed me and Ric, we _know_. We know exactly what you're dealing with, with him. But he's survived as a vampire without ever living in extremes. Even those times when he seemed pretty crazy--well, Ric says that was mostly an act for Stefan, to annoy his brother. This is stuff Damon told Ric on their many drinking nights. He never ripped people apart and put them back together again."

Elena's eyes cloud with tears, and she shakes her head at her brother. "That wasn't his fault, Jer. Ric," she says plaintively, looking back towards him. "Stefan is a good person, you know that he is!"

"The point is, he's not a good vampire," Ric says. "Tell her that, Jeremy. Tell her she already knows this, I'm not telling her anything she hasn't figured out in the last six months."

Jeremy wraps his arm around his sister and after repeating Ric's words, he adds, "You need to learn how to be a vampire who can handle it. Damon's the one."

Elena doesn't say anything, she just leans her head on Jeremy's shoulder, and though he knows she can't see him, Ric feels like she's looking right at him, waiting for his silent nod of encouragement. "He loves you, Elena. He'll do anything for you. Ask him to teach you."

She starts crying harder after Jeremy relays the message, and Ric says nothing else. She has to get there on her own, one way or another. He and Jeremy have made their case, now they have to hope she'll agree.

 

 

On the porch, Alaric watches them hug. There is a tenderness there that he has rarely seen in Damon, except when he's with Elena, and that's sort of the point, all the way around.

Elena needs what Damon can teach her and Damon needs what Elena brings out in him. It's not like Ric would be the first one in line to see them together, but he supports that more than he does a Stefan union. Over time he came to understand something very simple: Damon didn't kill because he lost control. He did it to prove something or to accomplish something. Stefan was really the much more dangerous one. He hasn't shared his views on that with Jeremy, though, because too many of his thoughts are already in that kid's head. 

Damon's hands comb through her hair and he gently rocks her left and right. Ric's not stupid, and he didn't spend the majority of his time with Damon because he's an ass all the time. He's not; there's this whole part of him that very few people see, and while it feels a bit intrusive spying on them, he needs to know where it's going. Jeremy can't horn in, and Elena didn't voice her thoughts before she left her brother upstairs in his room.

"Thank you," she says now, her voice choked. 

"No problem," Damon says, feigning nonchalance while she can't see the emotion all over his face. As soon as she pulls back, he schools his features, but it's not enough. Even Ric can see how unsure his friend is in the face of this possibility. "Want to tell me about the Quarterback?" Damon asks, postponing the inevitable.

Elena shrugs, and drops her arms away from Damon's body, but she doesn't move. They are still standing quite close together as she speaks lowly. "He came over, the day after..." she doesn't add _I turned_ but Ric gets it. "...and offered. At first I said no. And then I didn't. And then he started coming every day, and..." she breaks off, and when she tries dropping her eyes away from Damon's his hand catches her chin and keep their gazes locked. "I practiced on him, and I could stop. He even let me..." She rubs a hand over her neck, right in the primo biting area. "Here. And it was good. I loved it. It's better than a bloodbag, and I didn't want to kill him. But then Stefan walked in and caught us, and..."

She sniffs and grabs at Damon's hand, trying to dislodge him, but he just stands firm, not allowing her to shy away. "And he didn't like it. And I didn't care. Well, I cared—or maybe I should say I _understood_ why it bothers him—but I don't know if I care enough not to do it."

"Why do you think it bothers him?" Damon asks, his voice deceptively soft.

"Because he thinks it's wrong," she answers immediately.

"No," Damon snaps back instantly and Elena's eyes dart away even though he still won't let her actually move her head. "He wants to think it's wrong, but really it pisses him off because that's a guy you used to sleep with and you were doing a very intimate thing with him. Think about it." Damon just watches her for a couple of beats. "Who have you ever shared blood with in the past?"

Finally Elena shoves away from him, using her new-found strength to do so. Ric watches Damon carefully though, and he can see it's still a case of him letting her. He could easily overpower her if he wanted, but for once Damon's using a soft touch. "Elena?" he asks, and she turns her back on him. She doesn't respond so Damon gives a little shrug for no one to see. "I'm saying, you might as well have been fucking the Quarterback. That's what was going through Stefan's mind. But of course he'll cloak it in vampire etiquette so you two never have a real conversation."

Elena turns on him then, all rage and beauty and Damon smiles, as though his goal has been accomplished. (Knowing him, it probably has.) "Don't shoot the messenger," he says, lifting his hands up innocently.

"Why do you have to be like this?" she demands. "I want it to be nice between us, I want to forget how angry I am with you so that I can see if Jeremy is right about all this, but then you have to just be so...ugh, _Damon_."

Damon smirks. "Hey, remember when you lied and said you like me just how I am?" Then his face falls a little. "Wait. You're so _angry_ with me? What the hell did I do?"

"You compelled me!" she shouts, and Ric leans forward inadvertently. This is the first he's ever heard of this, and he's been privy to many drunken Damon confessions.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Damon scoffs. "Are we back to that? It doesn't mean anything, Elena. So what, we met the night your parents died. It wasn't like we'd have walked off into the sunset if I let you remember that. I was here for Katherine, remember?"

She crosses her arms over her chest, much like Jeremy had earlier when he was imitating their father. "I'm not talking about that, and you know it. I'm talking about the first time you gave me my necklace back."

Damon's smirk grows more smirky if possible, but Ric can see it all unraveling in his eyes. He holds on to it for five seconds longer and then he just gives up, which startles both Ric and Elena. "Okay, fine. I made a big confession and then I made you forget. It's not like you didn't know I loved you. I only made you forget so you wouldn't have to deal with it."

Elena snorts and rolls her eyes, and she looks so much like Damon that it makes Ric laugh. "Right. What a liar you are, Damon. You made me forget so _you_ wouldn't have to deal with it. Like you don't know what compulsion does? You feel something, but you don't know why you feel it; there's an ache in your soul, but you have no explanation for it. I stood there and got bombarded by _your_ feelings and then I didn't even know what caused _my_ feelings."

Damon looks genuinely confused and he asks with a completely sincere expression, "What are you talking about?"

"Katherine never compelled you to forget something? Never?" she asks sharply.

Damon waves a hand. "No. She just, you know, did it for petty things, like when she wanted me to leave her alone."

"And that didn't leave any lingering _feelings_? Like maybe doubt about her sincerity? Or some kind of feeling that you were missing something major? Really? You're going to stand there and tell m—"

"Elena," he interrupts, his voice suddenly darker. "She turned both me and my brother into vampires after she promised me it would only be me. I had a pretty good inkling for a long time that it wasn't all kosher. I simply chose to believe that when _I_ rescued her from the tomb, she wouldn't care about Stefan anymore. But what does that matter _now_?"

A bitter laugh tumbles from Elena's lips. "It's sort of ironic how _clearly_ you see everything with Stefan and me, but how far you have your head up your ass about yourself." She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip. "You threw your feelings on me, didn't let me respond to or absorb anything you'd said, and then you took it away. So I was left with all this...emotion...for you, and no idea what it was about. For all the things you've ever done to hurt me, I don't know. Maybe you really don't get it, Damon, but that was the worst. Making me carry that, without my knowledge. That made me angrier than the blood. Or Bonnie's mom. Or—"

"It only made you madder because you're a vampire now. Everything's heightened. You know what would happen if I killed Jeremy now? You'd fucking murder me, end of story. You're Elena!All-Jacked-Up. You're the kind of girl who feeds on her ex-boyfriend, justifies it to her current boyfriend, and then throws it in her best friend's face. Think about that: all things human!Elena would never have done. So be mad at me, I don't give a flying fuck. As usual, all that really matters is that you're still here, and even though I could wring Stefan's scrawny neck for it, it's still better than you being dead." He swings around like he might walk off the porch, and adds an "I think," layered with deep sarcasm.

Ric has observed Damon and Elena many times, watched the extraordinary ease that is sometimes between them, seen the heat that flares up from time to time, witnessed the disappointment on both sides for various reasons. It's always worried him, this connection, because the one thing he knows for sure is that it's stronger than either Damon or Elena understand. They are bound together in a way that supercedes his brother, her common sense, or any normal relationship.

But after all that, after all the words they just exchanged in hostility, in the absolute solving of _nothing_ , Elena just looks at him and says, "Jeremy wants you to teach me to be a vampire."

Damon glances back over his shoulder at her, sort of sizing her up. There is no surprise on his face, just scrutiny. "Why not, right?" he says flippantly. "You taught me to be human."

Elena takes a breath, not quite a gasp, but something about it shocks her, and she gapes at him just a little. Ric would love to be inside her head, because he sees the moment when it clicks, when she decides, but he wants to know exactly why. "All right," she says, and it appears to be so very simple.

Damon's thoughts mirror his own. "Just like that?" he asks.

"Just like that," Elena confirms.

In a flash, Damon looks both smug and terrified all at once, and in any other situation, Ric might find that funny. Right now, with so much hanging in the balance, he just can't find the humor very easily.

Damon closes the space between him and Elena, his hands capturing her face. He tilts her head up to his and says determinedly, "I'm not going to teach you the most humane way to do this, Elena, and we're probably going to fight and hurt each other and, you know, our normal MO, but I won't ever make you feel bad about what you are. This is how it is now, and you are not going to spend eternity apologizing for what you are."

She searches his face, her eyes wide and frightened. Then she slowly nods, swallows loudly and reaches up to take his hands in hers. She squeezes her palms around Damon's knuckles. "Okay," she murmurs.

It shifts then, the spark lighting up just as bright as a string of Christmas lights, and Ric really really hopes they don't start kissing, because he does not want to be around for that.

When that happens, he wants to be long gone. So, with a blink, he leaves the Gilbert porch.

 

 

Sheila Bennett approaches him quietly, but he knows who she is before she introduces herself. She reminds him of Bonnie, just the austere look about her, the seriousness in her eyes. "You know my granddaughter?" she asks after they've exchanged names.

"Yes, I was her history teacher. She says she needs your help with a special spell that will permanently disable an Original, but won't kill him. If she kills him, it kills his whole bloodline, which is pretty much every vampire she knows."

Sheila's quiet a moment. "Including her mother?" she asks.

Alaric nods.

"How will we do this?" she asks.

"Jeremy Gilbert is a medium. He can see me, so maybe he'll be able to see you too. Regardless, we can communicate, even if it's tricky, one by one. Bonnie's sure that you can help her."

Sheila gives him one beady squinched eye and says, "I'll listen, but I don't promise to help. That many vampires dead all at once? That sounds like Nature's way of taking care of business."

Ric would be concerned about this attitude if he hadn't ever met Esther, so he just nods compliantly. He believes Bonnie will have the words he couldn't even begin to find to convince this woman to help.

And if she won't, well, then they'll have a whole new fight on their hands.


	7. Jeremy

Jeremy sits on the couch with the television on, trying to act like he's not waiting for Damon to come back in the house. When his new roommate opens the door, he can't help the way his head jerks around, and then he can't stop the smile that splits his face.

Elena proceeds Damon into the house, and she looks a little worse for wear somehow, even though it's only been a half hour since he last saw her. She gives Jeremy a weak smile, but his eyes go past her to Damon, who gives him a sharp nod of his head, and he relaxes. Suddenly, it feels like everything will be just fine.

Elena comes around the couch and throws herself down next to him. She takes the bowl of popcorn from his lap and snuggles in beside him. "What are you watching?" she asks.

"James Bond," he answers. 

Damon heads for the kitchen. "Want a drink, Elena?" he asks.

"Yes, please," she says, shoving some popcorn in her mouth.

Jeremy watches her carefully before asking, "So, you're staying here?"

Elena nods. "I'll call Stefan tomorrow." Her eyes dart up to his and she inclines her head. "You were right. Damon's going to help. So. Yeah, I'm staying here. Is that cool?"

"Super cool," Jeremy says.

Damon strolls in, two glasses of whiskey in hand. He gives one to Elena and then sits down on the couch so she's between them. "What're we watching?" he asks, as though this is just like any other day.

"James Bond," Elena states as she takes a sip of her alcohol.

"Wait," Damon says, holding up a hand. "Which James Bond? Because seriously, I've been around for all of them, and if it ain't Sean Connery, it better be Daniel Craig, because the rest are shit."

"It's Daniel Craig," Jeremy says.

"Okay then," Damon asserts. "We can watch it."

Elena laughs a little. "You know, just because you're staying here doesn't mean you get to boss everyone around."

Damon mutters something that sounds distinctly like, "The hell it doesn't," as he throws back the contents of his glass, and Jeremy reaches for the remote. He turns the TV way up in the hopes that a fight won't start, but both seem content to leave the conversation there.

He side-eyes the two of them through the majority of the movie, but after a while he gets caught up in the plot and forgets all the worry he's felt the last... well, forever, it feels like. When the movie's over, Elena's asleep, her head on Damon's shoulder and Damon's staring intently into the bottom of the glass that he's got pressed to his thigh. Jeremy begins, "So, it went—" but Damon shushes him by pressing his own index finger to his lips. Then he points to Elena and to his ear, as though she would be listening when she's obviously asleep. Jeremy rolls his eyes, but then Damon deftly turns and scoops Elena into his arms.

"I'll be back in a minute," Damon says softly.

Jeremy watches him take her up the stairs, and waits patiently for him to come back downstairs. It's early, not even 8pm, but Elena's been through the wringer. She's always been like that, able to endure a lot and then suddenly she just hits the wall and stops, sleeps for 16 hours straight, before going out and dealing with everything again. Jeremy smiles to himself; he supposes it's good that there are still many things he recognizes about his sister. And he likes seeing Damon taking care of her. Rose was right; Elena does make Damon a better person. He just hopes that Damon's influence on Elena is the good vampire stuff, not the bad vampire stuff.

 

 

The next day, Alaric shows up with Sheila Bennett. Jeremy had met Bonnie's grandmother once or twice at school carnivals or Founders Events, but he'd never known her. She seems glad that he can see her, because she's a bit distrustful of Alaric. "Let's go see my grandbaby," she says, and so he calls Bonnie to make sure she's home.

"Your Grams' is here with Alaric," he says when Bonnie seems unenthused to see him. "Can we come over?"

Bonnie is much more excited then, but she makes him promise he won't bring Damon with him. Jeremy looks at Alaric with vague alarm, wondering how the hell he's going to get past the vampire downstairs.

"He's busy with Elena, anyway," Ric says.

Jeremy grimaces. "Not really. They just sort of sit around. I thought they'd, I don't know, go out and do vampire-y things, but instead, they're just laying around doing nothing."

Ric smiles. "Trust me, he's busy with Elena."

All the same, when his sister and Damon see him leaving, they start asking a million questions, so he tells them the truth. "But Bonnie doesn't want you to come with me," he says when Damon gets to his feet and reaches for his jacket.

There is this long beat of silence where Damon looks at him, glances at Elena, and then nods his head agreeably. "Okay," he says, shocking Jeremy. He doesn't look to see if Ric's in the room, but he can practically hear him smirking. 

"Okay?" Jeremy asks, and he can't keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

Damon blinks and then shrugs. "Okay," he repeats. "Call me if you get into trouble."

Jeremy grabs the keys to the Camaro. "Is this okay, too?" he asks.

That's when Damon hesitates just a little, but then he waves a hand. "Go ahead. Just know that if you don't bring it home in one piece, I _will_ kill you. No ring this time, unless, you know, you can get it back from Bonnie."

Jeremy laughs while Elena's eyes narrow and Damon pretends not to notice. "Got it. Be back later."

He drives to Bonnie's house hardly sure he knows the guy he just left with his sister. He's nervous, anxious, hopeful. He wants whatever Bonnie wants, and maybe that's all it is with Damon and Elena. Jeremy corrects his own thoughts: of course he wants more from Bonnie (as does Damon with Elena), but if being the link between her and her grandmother (Elena and her ability to function as a vampire) then he's willing to just be that. Maybe it will lead to more; maybe it won't. Either way, he's going to do the best he can for her. He thinks maybe that's what Damon wants, too, even if he'd never really say it.

When Bonnie opens the door and leads him into the living room, she has a small, trembly smile on her face. He touches her cheek with a knuckle. "She's here," he says, and the tears are so instantaneous he wishes he had a tissue to offer her.

Sheila steps forward and grabs at Jeremy's arm, which surprises him. "I haven't been able to feel anyone since Anna," he says, looking at both Alaric and Bonnie.

"I'm using magic for you to be able to feel me," Sheila says. "Now, take Bonnie's hand."

"She wants us to hold hands," he says, reaching out to Bonnie.

The moment Bonnie's palm slides over his, it's like an electric rush goes through his body. Sheila starts talking and before he can repeat her question, Bonnie is already responding. Because they can obviously see each other, both start crying. They babble for several minutes about the right and wrong of the situation, and Jeremy is both immobile because of a dead witch's spell and because experiencing Bonnie's emotion feels like a punch to the stomach.

She pleads with her grandmother, explains how alone she feels, and that if she were to lose her best friends she's not sure that she could go on. "They've been the constants in my life, Grams. You know that. Elena was with me the night you died. Caroline got me through it with her silly cheerfulness. I love them so much; being responsible for their deaths is not something I can do. Please, help me. Help me keep them alive."

"What about the others?" Sheila asks, and it's all Jeremy can do to keep quiet. He wants to defend Damon, words he never could have dreamed rushing into his mind. He knows what they must think, especially because of Abby, but he wants to remind Bonnie that in the end, Damon's done far for more for them than her mother ever has.

Bonnie's cheeks are streaked with tears, and she glances away from her grandmother, her gaze connecting with Jeremy's for a brief moment. Maybe something of what he's feeling shows on his face, or maybe their linked hands gives him away, he doesn't know, but Bonnie says, "We've all had to make hard choices. They had to, too. I can't dole out judgment on them when I've had to do the same things." She takes a deep breath. "Their punishment is their own doing; nothing I could ever do will be more than the hell they've created for themselves. I know that now. Now that Abby's a vampire, I understand better. It's a curse, Grams; you lose far more than you can ever gain. But what they all should have is more time; more time to get it right."

Sheila still looks skeptical, so Bonnie adds, "If that weren't the case, this spell wouldn't even be possible. Nature can be generous, once in a while." Her fingers tighten around Jeremy's. "Please, Grams. Please help me."

A wave of relief sweeps Jeremy when Sheila agrees.

 

 

"So Bonnie's grandma's going to go beg for forgiveness and get the witch spirits back on Bonnie's side? That's the plan?" Damon asks, a hint of cynicism in his voice.

The three of them, Jeremy, Damon, and Elena, are in the kitchen making dinner as Jeremy recounts the events at Bonnie's (minus the part where he kissed her). Elena is chopping up broccoli and squash to steam, because even though it doesn't matter what she and Damon eat, she is insistent that Jeremy needs a healthy diet. There's a chicken roasting in the oven, along with some potatoes, and it feels very warm and cozy in the Gilbert kitchen.

They haven't done anything like this since before Alaric died, so it's both achingly familiar and strange-feeling all at once. Elena stops chopping the veggies to grab a glass of water and Jeremy slides in behind her, taking over the task. "She seemed to think she could convince them, and I have to agree. Have you ever met Bonnie's grandma? She's scary."

Damon chuckles as he stands across the island counter from Jeremy. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did meet her. You're right. Those Bennett women—they're almost as freaky as the Petrovas."

Elena whips around, flinging water across the room. "Shut up, Damon!" she says in a loud voice.

Jeremy is laughing, and not paying attention, and he slices a big chunk right out of his thumb. "Fuck!" he blurts, jerking his hand out from under the knife. The next moment is like a slow motion scene in a movie, because both Elena and Damon descend on him—one looking to protect, the other to annihilate—and before he knows exactly what's happened, Elena's teeth— _fangs_ —are deep in his hand. Damon pulls her off while she fights like mad to stay connected to him.

It hurts like hell, and scares the shit out of Jeremy, because not once has he felt threatened by his sister. In a single, solitary heartbeat, he is reminded. She is dangerous, and there is reason to fear her.

He looks up to see Damon holding Elena, his arms crossed over her torso so she's restrained, but they're both facing Jeremy. Elena has blood all across her mouth and the horror on her face as Jeremy wraps his hand in a kitchen towel grows larger and larger. "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God," she says over and over, her head rolling back against Damon's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Jer. I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay," Jeremy says, but even he can hear the uncertainty in his voice.

Damon's lips press to Elena's ear, "Shhhh, you're okay. It's alright, Elena. That wasn't something you could plan on. But it's good, it's good because now we can—"

Elena jerks out of his arms, her elbow slamming into his solar plexus quite heavily. Damon grunts, and bends over slightly. "It's good?" she shrieks, her usually low-key demeanor totally gone. "It's good? What the hell, Damon? How can it be good?"

"Now we know what happens to you when you're unprepared for blood. We can make a plan for that—" His breath is coming choppily and Jeremy watches as Elena only seems to get more agitated by his words. She blurs before the both of them, and the French doors fly open as she runs out of the kitchen, into the gathering darkness.

Damon blows out a breath, jamming his hands through his hair as he leans back against the counter. When he looks up at Jeremy, he says, "It was bound to happen. It's not as bad as she thinks. Okay, Jer? Trust me, it's not bad at all."

"Only because you were here to stop it," Jeremy says, and when Damon's mouth tightens irritably, Jeremy lifts his hand as a reminder. "That's exactly how she'll see it, Damon, so you have to console her based on that. Tell her it will get easier, explain to her how one day she'll be like you and not even feel the need to attack. You have—"

"I'm very well aware of what I need to do," Damon snaps, and Jeremy stiffens.

"Then go do it, dick," he snipes back, feeling injured. He and Damon have been buddies these last few days, totally in sync and on each other's sides about stuff, and it hurts Jeremy's feelings in a way he'd never admit for Damon to revert so quickly to the time when they weren't like that.

There's a long silence, and just before Jeremy's going to ask him if he's going to go find his sister, Damon asks, "Do you need stitches?"

Jeremy opens the towel to look at his thumb. Aside from the bite marks that surround his knuckles, the cut on his thumb isn't as bad as he first thought it was. "No," he says. "I'll be fine."

"Do you want my blood?" Damon asks. "Faster healing," he sing-songs.

Looking back up, he sees the softness in Damon's expression and realizes this is his version of an apology. Jeremy shakes his head. "No. Go on. Go find Elena. I'm okay."

A pause, then, "You sure?"

"Yes!" Jeremy all but yells. "Get the fuck outta here!"

"Language, young man, language," Damon chides with a smirk as he heads out the door Elena just whisked through.

"Example, _old_ man, _example!_ " he shouts after him.

Through the window, Damon flips him off. That, somehow, makes everything all right again.

 

 

He goes upstairs to find a good sized bandage for his thumb, and finds Ric hanging out in his bedroom. "Where'd Elena go?" Jeremy asks when he sees him.

"The woods. Damon will be able to find her easy enough. He can track her scent."

"She's gonna be pretty upset," Jeremy says.

"Yep, but that's okay, because Damon will find some way to make her learn from it."

"I hope so, man," Jeremy says, wrapping his thumb up. He moves so he's standing in the bathroom doorway, leaning against the doorjamb. "How long can you stay like this, Ric?" He gestures around the room. "I mean, I appreciate you looking after us, even from where you are, but you can't just hang around indefinitely, can you?"

"I don't know. I think I'll be here as long as I'm needed. So, when I'm not needed anymore, we'll see, I guess." He says it with a matter-of-factness that takes away the sting of the words.

"Maybe I'll just need you forever, then," Jeremy says with a smile.

"Like, when I tell you you shouldn't have kissed Bonnie today?"

Jeremy feels his face flush. "What? You creeper. I thought you left!" Then he sits down on his bed. "Why shouldn't I have kissed her? She liked it. She kissed me back, even. It was nice. It was the farthest we've ever gone, actually."

"You took advantage of her. She was super emotional after what happened with her Grams."

Jeremy lifts his eyebrows in Ric's direction. "Did her grandma tell you to say this?"

Ric laughs. "No, Pinhead. I'm telling you, from what I witnessed, it was just bad on you to do that."

"Well, I was feeling pretty emotional, myself. I mean, I could feel everything they were feeling when they used me for the conduit. I guess I was carried away. Do you think Bonnie'll try to say it didn't mean anything next time I see her?"

Ric presses his lips into a thin line and gives Jeremy a stern look. "I'm saying, maybe you should let her off the hook. Besides, you never even apologized to her like Damon said you should."

"Aw, man, fuck you!" Jeremy says, laughing. "Everybody's up in my business! I _will_ apologize to her. Not for the making out with her—but the making out with Anna. I know it was dumb, and Bonnie's the best, and I want her back. I'm planning it all out. I've got a big idea. I just, you know, have to deal with my vampire sister at the moment." Ric's still giving him the dad-face when Jeremy says, "I dig her, Ric. Like more than any other girl ever. Bonnie's awesome, and I'm going to show her how I feel, I promise. Stick around long enough to see that, okay?"

Ric smiles despite his struggle not to. "I'll do my best."

"You ever spy on Damon and Elena?" Jeremy asks.

"No!" Ric says explosively. "And I wasn't spying on you, I didn't think you'd do that! With Damon, I never know what the hell might happen, so I get outta there before I'm scarred for eternity."

Jeremy laughs again. "Yeah, well, I don't want to see it, either, but I sure as hell want to know what they're doing together. They're so weird. Like, tension, up to here," he gestures with his hand high above his head, "but they hardly even touch, at least when I'm around. It's sort of exhausting to watch."

Ric snorts. "Imagine being either of them."

"That would suck."

"Yeah."

Suddenly wishing he had some of Sheila Bennett's magic so he could hug his history teacher, Jeremy adds, "You're the best, Ric. Thanks for still being here."

"It's my pleasure, really. You probably better go pull that food out of the oven. You might be eating alone tonight."

"Come hang with me, at least till they get back?"

Jeremy walks down the stairs alone, but Ric's already in the kitchen, waiting for him.


	8. Damon

When Damon finds her in the woods, he's not surprised by what he sees, exactly. Part of him, the part he would never expose to anyone, will never get used to Elena as a predator. He knows it's better, better than her being dead, better than her being gone forever. The biggest truth he'd grasped on her front porch when she asked for his help was not that he had some secret playbook to trump Stefan's teaching method; no, what he realized then is that he has all the time in the world to get it right. One way or another, if Elena will stick with him, it will work out.

(Of course, the idea of Elena sticking with him is pretty ludicrous.)

She's sitting on the ground, faint moonlight filtering through the leaves of the trees surrounding her. He could smell the blood before he got her, but it's not human. No, there are various animal carcasses surrounding her. Two bunnies, three squirrels, even a deer. She'd gone on a rampage, but even so, it's a mild one. She'll be beating herself up about it, but if those were human bodies around her, this would be a much more serious situation.

Still, she had to be pretty stealthy to get all of them, so Damon can't help but be impressed.

Her head snaps up when his footsteps reach her ears, and she springs to her feet. She only visibly relaxes when he comes into full view and she knows it's him. "Damon," she says with a weary sigh, as though it could have been someone else.

Maybe she wants it to be someone else, but he's it. He's the guy, both by default and by design.

He approaches her carefully because even though she knows it's him, she's still upset and, as they both know, she likes to hit. The thing is, now, she can actually hurt him. She's covered in blood; it's all over her face and her clothes, the t-shirt and jeans she put on that morning better for the burn pile now.

"You okay?" he asks.

She shakes her head miserably and tears begin to fall. He wants to do it again, just scoop her into his arms and rock away the pain, but it doesn't feel right this time. He sort of sees how this happened with her and Stefan. When you spend the majority of your time wanting to make her happy, it's really difficult to see her unhappy. Damon might be a romantic sap at heart, but he's not a stupid shit like his brother, so he doesn't let it overpower him.

One of them has to be sensible. And he's the only one capable at this point.

"Jeremy is fine," he says, his voice quiet but firm. "He's fine, and you didn't do anything to him that he can't recover from." He comes to a stop in front of her, but he doesn't touch her. "Look at me, Elena."

She forces her teary gaze up to his and nods her head. "I know. I know that in my head. But here," she says, her voice choking off as she presses her fist to the center of her chest. "Here it feels awful. I feel awful. I killed all these animals, Damon. Look at them." She glances around and then her eyes come back to his face. "I know what it is, now. To want to shut it all off. Just press the button, right? It will all go away."

"No," he says quickly, but still trying to keep his voice even. "No, _it_ doesn't go away. It's more like _you_ go away, Elena. You go to a dark, hard place that is really difficult to come back from. You've seen vampires like that, you've known us all at that place. You don't want to go there."

She wipes at the tears on her cheek, smearing more blood across her face. She looks off into the distance, and then her eyes swing back to his with ferocity. "You weren't like that," she says.

He frowns at her. "Yes, I was. Remember when I tried to compel you to kiss me? When I killed Vicki? Remember when I fed you my blood, in the cemetery?"

She shakes her head. "You wished me the best. You said, _I want you to get everything you're looking for._ You told me I should quit cheerleading if it didn't make me happy. You compelled Jeremy to forget when I asked you to."

She takes a step closer to him, the distance between them rapidly diminishing. "Don't rewrite history, Elena," he nearly whispers.

"You never flipped the switch. You were never like that. You just did assy things to make Stefan mad."

"Elena," he says loudly. "I killed Vicki. I killed Lexi. I killed _Jeremy_."

"You never flipped the switch?" she says again, but this time it's a question, and Damon realizes why it's so important to her. 

If he didn't do it, and he's still here, all these years later, maybe there's hope for her.

So he tells the truth, albeit reluctantly. "I never flipped the switch. I couldn't; I had to always care if I was going to get Katherine out. And then I met you."

 _And I'll never be able to flip the switch now, ever._ And neither will she; Elena, the compassionate one, the one who felt sorry for him because he'd "lost" Katherine, too. That girl can never shut it off, no matter how much she wants to.

She sags against him, collapsing forward until her head is on his chest. His hand comes up and cups the back of her head. "Let's go home," he says gently.

She shakes her head. "Not to my house." Her hand grabs a hold of the front of his shirt, her fingers fisting in the material. "I don't want to see Jeremy, not tonight."

"The Boarding House?" he asks, because he's sure she doesn't want to see Stefan either, not like this. That's their biggest problem: neither of them wants the other to see them how they really are, so Damon runs interference for them, knowing the truth about both of them and having to divide his affections.

(Not really; Stefan will always be his brother, nothing can change that. But Elena will always be the girl who changed everything, and he can no more forget that than he can his own name.)

She whimpers a little and then agrees quietly.

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and they disappear into the night.

* * *

As they enter the house, Damon calls out for his brother, but Stefan isn't there. He sends Jeremy a text message that they're going to stay at the Boarding House tonight, and when he looks at Elena and she looks at him, and they understand that they are all alone, something shifts.

Like, maybe the entire planet.

He leads her upstairs to his room, to his bathroom. He grabs a washcloth and after wetting it down, he wipes her face clean. She stands docilely, letting him do it. He pushes her hair back, tucking it behind her ears, and then he gestures at her dirty clothes. "We need to get you out of those. Do you have some spare clothes in Stefan's room?"

She nods. "Yes. He always let me use the top right drawer for my stuff."

"Stay here," Damon says. "I'll go get them."

He presses the washcloth into her hand and calmly walks out of the room, even though he doesn't feel calm at all. His heart is thumping like they just ran a marathon, and his blood is pooling in certain places. He had no intention of this (no, really). His desire to help Elena wasn't part of his grand plan to win her over. It was more because he had Jeremy (and Ric) breathing down his neck about it, and on the one hand he agrees with them.

On the other hand...

He finds pajama shorts and camis in Stefan's bureau—Elena clothes if ever there were some. He takes a deep breath and tells himself he can do this. He can take care of her emotionally without the other. After all, they really haven't ever had the other, minus that one time she mauled him. (Okay, yeah, he mauled her back, so what?)

But when he goes back to his bathroom, she's standing in front of the mirror without her shirt on, just down to her bra. Her jeans are still on, but she's staring at herself, the veins around her eyes filled up and her fangs on full display. He sets the clean clothes down on the counter and moves to stand behind her. She seems to be examining herself, so he leans forward, so their heads are even, and lets his face match hers.

Her eyes meet his in the mirror and she reaches up to sweep her hair aside. Her meaning is clear, but he's sure he must be misunderstanding. Then her hand comes up and presses against the side of his face, her fingers just brushing at the blood vessels on his cheekbone. "I never thought it was ugly," she says around her own fangs, her eyes still on his. "I just didn't want it to be my face."

He leans down, brushing his lips along the curve of her neck. He can feel her trembling, but it's not from fear, and he knows it. He lets his teeth graze the perfect skin on the side of her neck that bears no scars from the other times vampires bit her, back when she was human. She arches into him, and his teeth sink past creamy flesh, blood instantly filling his mouth. She moans her approval and Damon's cock throbs.

The difference between human blood and vampire blood is simply the potency. Human blood to a vampire is sustenance, vitality, and literal life, while vampire blood to humans is medicine, healing, and compensation. Vampire blood to a vampire? Damon's never said no, but it's never been a big thing for him either. Until now. Until Elena, because everything about her is _more_.

Everything about her is lifeblood to him.

A few moments later, he lifts his mouth from her throat, and her face is still vampiric. He kisses her cheek, the stain of her blood brightening his lips. "You're beautiful like this. You may not have wanted it, Elena, but it looks good on you."

She turns into him very quickly, biting him without asking, or even indicating exactly that she intended, too, though he knows she made up her mind downstairs. He tips his head back, slightly to the right, to give her the best access, and while she feeds, he keeps his hands busy by tugging at the front of her jeans, and his. 

He would stop her, he would try to make it be something else entirely, but they've been on a collision course for too many days now. He knows what the reality should have been: she chose Stefan, she went home to him, and they lived happily ever after, until her mortality took her from him. That was the plan, that is exactly how it would have played out.

But, now, Elena is a vampire. Elena is everything she only ever let herself be with Damon, but all the time. So Elena chooses Stefan, and she goes home to him, but she dies. And now, now she is Damon's. Not because he'll be a better teacher, not because he loves her more. But because he sees her for everything she is, and he always has.

And she knows it, because she sees him. And she always has, even the things he thought he hid so well.

She feeds longer than he did (she needs it more) and when he's starting to feel a bit dizzy, she pulls away. Together they strip her of her pants and underwear. Her hands slide into his hair as he lifts her up, balancing her against the sink. Their eyes never part, and this is the other thing: Elena showing him she knows exactly what she's doing. This isn't like what happened in the kitchen with Jeremy; this is a decision more damning than that.

(More freeing than that.)

He fucks her on the marble counter top, his jeans barely undone, her bra still on. Just before she comes, she touches his face with her fingertips. They've both returned to normal, at least in appearance, and her eyes fall shut when she bucks up into him, clenching, bringing him with her.

She says his name like she never has before, and her fingers press desperately into the back of his neck.

Damon's mouth is against her shoulder when he says, "I love you."

She starts to cry, her arms wrapping around him, pressing their bodies more tightly together. "Never leave me," she replies, and that's good enough for him.

* * *

They're laying in his bed sometime later, quiet but not asleep. Damon turns his head to watch her, and she's curled up facing him, her hand resting against his chest. 

"I'm sorry," he says, and it feels pulled from the depths of his soul. Words he rarely utters, and only to her, but he is sorry. The guilt has weighed on him since she brought it to his attention.

Her eyes widen a bit, and she smooths her hand over his abdomen. "It's okay. Stefan and I aren't really together. I mean, we tried to be, but it didn't work. So—"

"I'm not sorry about _that_ ," he interrupts, giving her a look. "Like I ever could be. Come on." He puts his hand over hers, pulling her fingers to his lips. He presses kisses against the pads of her fingers. "I'm sorry I put it on you. The burden. I wasn't thinking of that, of what it would do to you. But, in my heart, I think I wanted that. I wanted you to feel it. I told myself you just needed to hear it once and that was it, but...it was a lie. And I'm sorry."

She gives him a small smile. "I forgive you," she says.

"Of course you do. I mean, compassion amplified? If I got forgiveness for all that other shit, that wasn't going to be the dealbreaker, was it?"

She rubs her fingers against his bottom lip. "When I remembered? When it came back to me, it was like all the pieces of my life suddenly connected. It hurt so deeply. It all—I don't even know how to describe it, it funneled, here." She presses her other hand to the center of her chest, and his eyes are drawn to both the action and her bare breasts. "I wanted you more than I ever had before, but I was also mad at you, and I couldn't..." She shakes her head. "I had to let Jeremy orchestrate this whole thing, I guess."

Damon pushes himself up, propping his head up on his elbow. "Right now is probably not a great time to be making decisions, Elena. You're pretty messed up. So, don't think I'll be holding you to all this. Eternity's a long time."

"You're such a liar," she says, and the affection in her tone makes Damon's cock twitch.

He slides his arm under her, and pulls her close, tumbling her across his chest as he rolls back flat on the bed. "Jeremy is obviously my new best friend," he says instead of trying to explain it.

He means it. Tomorrow, she might go back to Stefan. And he'll probably let her, because eternity _is_ a long time. What he's certain of now is that she'll always come back to him, too.

It's an exquisite kind of pain, the kind he has never been able to escape from, his entire existence. Why should it be any different now?

Elena lowers her mouth to his, nips at his bottom lip, and whispers, "I'm in love with you, Damon." She lifts her head then, eyes very serious. "I just wish I hadn't had to die to figure it out."

The gravity of the moment takes his breath and all he can do is make a joke to alleviate it. "Life's a bitch and then you die," he quips.

Her mouth quirks a little, like she doesn't know how to take it, so he reverses their positions so he's on top and cradled between her thighs. She gasps when she feels him against her and arches up in invitation. "But," he adds, pressing his mouth to hers. "Sometimes you get to live forever."

Her arms surround his neck, and he can see it, in her eyes: the resolve to make the best of it, like she always does. "We'll survive," she says.

"We'll _live_ ," he says.

"We'll live," she repeats. 

When she draws his face back down to hers, he tries not to feel too happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might have veered into the schmalty area... :-/


	9. Alaric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's always hard to come to the end of a story, but I put this one off even longer because it was such a fun surprise. I never expected what it became, but it's been one of my most favorites to date of anything I've written. Many thanks to Katie for the spark of the idea and for her encouragement along the way. And to everyone else who enjoyed the bromance, and the romance, I hope this is a satisfactory ending! I had all these plans of Jeremy's big apology for Bonnie and everything, but it just felt right to end it here. [Consider it a deleted scene: just know that Damon helps with an elaborate romantic set-up in the woods behind the Boarding House, and Jeremy sweeps Bonnie off her feet!] xoxo

Jeremy's phone beeps and both he and Alaric look over at it curiously. Sitting at the kitchen table, it's almost like old times except that Alaric can't eat anything, of course. But they're sitting there chatting about nothing like it's perfectly normal.

Because that's what they do. They roll with it. They've all learned to deal with the oddness of their lives as best they can. He hates to think of it, but Ric's sure that once Bonnie binds Klaus into his own body, and Elena's on the safe road to coping, he'll be unable to make contact like this.

The thought is deeply saddening, so he tries not to dwell on it.

Jeremy's eyes widen as he looks at his phone, and the incoming text message. "Damon says they're gonna stay at the Boarding House, just for tonight." He looks up at Alaric. "Should I go over there? Show Elena I'm okay?"

Ric shakes his head, a suspicion growing very steadily within him. "Damon will have told her you're fine. Let's just give them...some time alone."

Jeremy's smile is almost a leer. "You're not gonna pop in over there tonight, are you?"

"No," Ric agrees quietly. "Definitely not."

There's a beat of silence, and Jeremy's grin fades. "Poor Stefan," he says, his voice sympathetic, his eyes soft. "I mean, I'm never gonna forgive him for letting her die, but still. Poor him."

Ric watches as Jeremy wolfs down more chicken and potatoes and as the young man is chewing, he advises, "You should forgive him, Jer. It doesn't do you any good to hold on to it. And even if Stefan's not Elena's boyfriend, he'll always be Damon's brother. The Salvatores will always be in your life, one way or another."

"Damon's pissed at him, too, so don't be too sure about that," Jeremy says, mouth full.

Ric inclines his head. "He's his _brother_ , Jeremy. His eternal, never-gonna-die brother. He won't be mad at him forever."

Jeremy swallows. "Well, and how mad can he be if he gets the girl, right?" He chuckles, and then his eyes go wide. "Oh, wait, so now, _Stefan_ will hate _Damon!_ Shit. It's a never ending cycle."

Ric nods. "Now you're starting to get it."

 

 

The next morning, Ric blinks himself into the Boarding House, but he imagines the kitchen until it materializes around him. As it turns out, that's the right place, because Damon and Elena are standing near each other as Damon pours them cups of coffee.

"...text said he'll be home in a few. He was at Caroline's. Maybe they were dealing with Klausler," Damon says, setting his phone down on the counter as he hands Elena one of the cups.

She sips carefully, and turns around to lean her hips against the cabinet. Her eyes dart around, almost as if she senses a third party, but then she says, "I just don't want him to walk in and _know_ , you know? Like just look at me and know I had sex with you."

"Six times," Damon says with a grin. "You had sex with me _six times_." He reaches over with his free hand and chucks her under the chin. "This is a reason to be grateful you're a vampire, Elena. If you were human, you wouldn't be able to walk today."

Ric mutters, "Gross," under his breath just as Elena makes a sound of disgust and says, "You're terrible," but she sounds rather affectionate, and Ric can't quite wrap his head around it.

He always knew it, deep down, but still. Seeing Elena Gilbert's love for Damon Salvatore? That's something new. He doesn't know if Stefan will be able to smell the sex on her as much as he'll be able to see the adoration on her face as she looks at Damon. Of course, the adoration from Damon towards Elena only seems intensified, and when she looks away from him the subtlety fades completely from his expression. Open worship is all he can think as he watches Damon watch her walk across the kitchen to sit on a barstool at the island.

"Just, let me talk okay? When he gets here, don't be snarky and assy, please?" Elena asks, setting her cup down.

"I won't," Damon says quietly. "I already promised Caroline. If this happened, I couldn't rub it in Stefan's face. Of course, I didn't really think it _would_ happen, and sure as hell not this fast, but, you know, lucky for you, I'm adaptable."

Elena watches him with a puzzled expression. "You promised _Caroline_ you wouldn't rub it in Stefan's face?"

Damon shrugs like it's no big deal. "She got me in a weak moment."

"A weak moment. Yeah. Okay," Elena says, still clearly shocked.

They both fall silent as the front door opens and Stefan calls his brother's name. Damon waits a beat and then calls back, "We're in the kitchen."

Stefan enters the room a moment later and his eyes fall on Elena first. He gives her a soft smile. "Everything okay?" he asks.

Elena nods. "Yes, yes, I'm fine."

Damon smirks, but no one's looking at him but Ric, so it goes unnoticed. "What's up with Blondie?" he asks, and Stefan turns toward him.

"We were at Bonnie's, protecting her from Klaus. She's almost ready to do the spell. Jeremy's coming over this afternoon and they're going to try connecting with Sheila again. If we're lucky, it will all be over today."

Damon snorts. "When have we ever been lucky?" he snarks.

"Damon..." Elena says, her voice soft. He looks at her, almost as if he forgot what was about to go down here. His expression transforms into something sort of enthralling. 

_Guy is so whipped_ , Ric mutters, and then chuckles to himself. Damon would die to know he thought that, but what else can he say. It's crazy obvious to him, even if he hadn't overhead them talking about their marathon of sex.

"I'll leave you two alone," he says, giving Elena a meaningful stare. He takes his coffee cup and heads for the living room.

Ric stays for a moment, his eyes on Elena's face as she says, "Stefan...I need to be honest with you..." but then he just can't watch it. It's not because of any deep affection he feels for Damon's brother. It's just the fact that when your heart gets ripped out, there probably shouldn't be an audience, even one you don't know about.

 

 

He goes with Jeremy to Bonnie's later that day, and Damon and Elena arrive without Stefan. He wants to ask, through Jeremy, what's up, but it's not really the time. Caroline is still there, having waylaid Klaus long enough that he believes Bonnie's about to do the spell that will put him back in his body.

"I just texted him," Caroline says. "I'm sure he'll be right over." She shudders a bit. "But he's bringing his body with him. So." She nods her head. "This has to work, right, Bonnie?"

"It'll work," Jeremy says, and Ric and Sheila exchange looks.

"Will it?" Ric asks her.

"I think so," she says, but she doesn't sound as positive as he would like.

When Klaus-in-Tyler's body arrives, he snarks at everyone as the casket with his not-quite-burned-beyond-recognition body is unloaded in the backyard. Alaric finds it funny that he never noticed the similarities between his best friend and this douchebag who killed Jenna until he was in Tyler Lockwood's body. Klaus agrees to kneel before Bonnie so she can put her hands on his head to perform the spell. He thinks she's just putting him back into his body, but it's both that and a dessication spell all at once. Jeremy has, of course, volunteered yet again to be the human heart that gets stopped, and when Sheila grabs a hold of him to transfer her power to Bonnie, she also reaches for Ric's hand.

"How can I help?" he asks. "I don't have any power."

"It's all energy on this side, History Teacher," Sheila says, wagging her fingers at him until he puts his hand in hers. Immediately he feels an electric current, something going through the essence of him that reminds him what it was like to be alive, with sensation constantly part of his existence.

Bonnie starts chanting, as does Sheila and it's all over within ten minutes. Tyler collapses, Jeremy wakes up, and Ric tells him to calm a sobbing Caroline with the news that Tyler will wake up soon, just as good as new.

A half hour later, after Tyler's awake and talking, Damon and Jeremy load Klaus's casket into Jenna's old car. There are hugs all around and then Elena says that she and Damon are going to take Klaus's body to an undisclosed location.

"Wait," Ric says, and Jeremy stops, looking back at him. "Ask them not to leave just yet," he says, which Jeremy repeats. Everyone circles back to stand on the sidewalk in front of Bonnie's house. Ric turns to Sheila. "Can we try something?" he asks.

She gives him a little smile. "I think I know what you want," she says. "And the spirits are inclined to help, since Klaus can't wreak any more havoc." She grabs Jeremy by the hand. "Take Bonnie's hand again," she says.

"Ric and your Grams are trying something," Jeremy says, turning towards Bonnie. "She wants us to hold hands again."

Bonnie's fingers lace through Jeremy's and then Sheila grasps Ric's hand with her free one. "Can you see him?" she asks of her granddaughter.

"Hi, Alaric," Bonnie says with just a touch of a sob in her throat.

"Hey, Bonnie," he says, smiling.

She turns her head towards Damon and Elena. "Take my hand," she says, reaching out. 

Elena steps forward, and then Damon, both of them wrapping their hands around Bonnie's. Her tear-filled eyes direct them across the circle, and Elena gasps, "Ric!" when she sees him.

Damon's eyes meet Ric's, and there is a moment of complete, utter silence. His eyes glisten, and then he nods his head almost imperceptibly. Ric finds he has no words now either, even though there are a million things he ought to say to all of them.

"Time is short," Sheila warns.

Ric looks at each of them, individually. "I love you," he says. "I love you all."

Everyone's crying, both living, dead, and undead, but Ric manages a smile through his tears. "Goodbye," he says, because that's the other thing he never got to say. "I'll see you again. Someday, when you're ready."

And with that, he closes his eyes one last time.


End file.
